Take Down
by OughtaKnowBetter
Summary: A sting operation against a local crime lord ends up stinging more than they planned.
1. Chapter 1

Take Down

By OughtaKnowBetter

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><p>Obligatory Disclaimer: Not mine. Wish they were. Guess I'll have to settle for a nice condo on Diamondhead with a view of the beach. Oh, wait; can't afford that, either.<p>

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><p><em>Oh, crap! <em>

There was a lot more that Steve McGarrett wanted to say, things that ranged from _Kono, get your ass out of there_ to _why the hell did I let her talk me into this_ and all the way through language that his mother would have been ashamed to learn that he knew, let alone used.

It wasn't just Kono, either. It was Danny Williams, playing his role to the hilt as the Mafioso from Jersey with Kono, the rookie cop, the cupcake on his arm. It was the two of them, on an undercover high, convinced that they could take down Peter Hanolo who was _only_ the top rung on the ladder of a group that had already demonstrated the ability to separate tourists from their money in a not so pleasant fashion. Money? Hell. Steve snorted. There were a few separated fingers, too, that the tourists left behind on the islands as they fled home. Not a nice guy, Hanolo. Not too good for the tourist industry, either.

Chin Ho Kelly, seated in the van next to him, fiddled with the bank of controls sitting in his lap, adjusting the volume. "So far, so good, boss," he said, the tension clear in his voice.

_You believe that as much as I do_. One wrong word from inside, one hint of the code they'd established for letting the team outside know that trouble was on the move, and Chin would be flinging that bank of controls to the floor of the van in his haste to get inside the nightclub, and Steve McGarrett wouldn't be behind him. No, Lt. Commander Steven McGarrett, ex-Navy SEAL and recently appointed all-around good guy and leader of Hawaii Five-O, would be leading the way to bail out those two babes in the woods.

Babes in the woods? Steve wrestled down another snort. Kono, sure. Chin's cousin had graduated from the Academy less than a year ago and the rookie edge was still there. Kono had what it took to make it big in her chosen profession: smarts, guts, and a spinning back kick that could down a three hundred pound gang member in his tracks, clutching pieces of himself that made Steve cringe just to think about it. _And_ she was drop dead beautiful, which was one of the reasons that they'd put her into play as Danny's arm candy. "You clean up nice, cuz," had been Chin's comment when Kono finally emerged from the back room, dressed in something form-fitting that left _nothing_ to the imagination, ready for the sting operation. "You just make sure that Hanolo doesn't corner you in a back room. Wouldn't want to blow your cover before he says something convictable."

The look that Kono returned had an offer to detach more fingers—this time not from tourists.

No, the real reason that Kono was here, playing with the big boys, was because it had been the newest member of the team who had picked up the lead. It had been on the team's day off—_time off? What's that? Not when the governor has your cell phone number programmed into her speed dial_—day off, putting in a few hours on the beach making certain that her surfing skills weren't getting dull, that she'd come across a lucky tourist who'd lost only money to Peter Hanolo's people rather than fingers. A few drinks, a few questions, and Kono had the long sought after location of where Hanolo liked to hang when he wasn't busy harassing tourists and throwing his weight around the black market community.

Steve still remembered the short discussion.

"_Boss, we know where he spends his time. We can take him down."_

"_Yeah? On what planet, Kono? You got any proof that he's dirty?"_

_The look that Danny had tossed in his direction was mostly disbelief._ Yeah, Danno, I occasionally think about the legalities of crime-stopping. Not often, I grant you, but it comes in handy when I'm trying to prevent Kono from committing suicide through sheer stupidity.

"_I can get proof, Steve," Kono had insisted. "Nobody knows me in that community. I'm just another local girl out to score a good time. I waltz in, make nice with Hanolo, and bring him out with a pair of shiny new bracelets. I can do this, boss."_

_Chin had come to Steve's rescue. "What makes you think that he's going to spill his dirty little secrets to you, cuz? We've got to make a case, you know."_

"_I…" Kono didn't have an answer._

_Danny did. "Because I'm going to offer him a chance at the Big Time," he announced. He bowed to the other three. "Meet Danny Amatullo, from Joisey." The accent was more pronounced, and the bow that Danny offered managed to swagger like a cock in a hen house. "I have just flown in for a little R & R and an opportunity to scope out new territory, because my old one is gettin' a little cramped for my taste."_

Which was how Danny Williams, AKA Danny Amatullo, tie around his neck and attitude in his step, had arrived at The Night's Pleasure with a local girl giggling at his side, ready to try out all the Hawaiian delights that he could find.

There was also a microphone in his belt buckle.

Steve listened to his partner talk his way through the sting. Not that he'd ever admit it to the man's face, but Danny was _good_ at this. Even over the airwaves, Steve could all but see the arms waving, the grandiose gestures, taking drink after drink—_hope you're pouring them somewhere other than down your throat. You aren't going to be able to shoot straight if you're not_—and Danny steadily wormed his way into Hanolo's good graces.

"You got it," Danny assured Hanolo, and Steve heard two glasses clinking over the mike. "You got the people, you got the connections. I got the bankroll and the know how. But, listen, guy; I want seventy-thirty, hear me?"

_Don't piss him off, Williams!_

"Seventy-thirty?" Hanolo said in disgust. "You crazy, brudder? _I'm_ the one with the people on this island. You give me sixty, I give you forty."

Danny snorted. "You got nothing but a bunch of penny-ante pissant pickpockets. Without me, you're going nowhere, _brudder_." He gave the slang just the right _haole _sneer, devoid of anything remotely resembling island living and Steve could imagine his partner leaning over the table, drink in hand, dragging the little paper umbrella out of the liquid and dumping it onto the napkin. "But I'm a nice guy, and I like to see my people happy. Listen, I'm gonna give you a break. I'll give you thirty five, 'cause I'm such a nice guy," he repeated.

Back in the van, Chin held up his hand, cell phone to his ear. "I've got Kono," he offered tersely, pulling the phone away and tapping it onto speaker. "What's the word, cuz?"

Kono kept her voice down, and they heard the slight echo bouncing off the cinderblock walls of the ladies room. "There's Hanolo, and five of his people, and like three more in back. They're all carrying hardware but nothing big, just handguns, although Hanolo's got a knife in his pocket that he likes to play with. One guy, the small _haole_ mainlander hanging out at the bar and watching, he's got a blade strapped to his calf. I think he's the only one who really knows what he's doing. The rest are local muscle. Can we take him out now?"

"Not yet," was Chin's response. "With what we got, they'll walk before the ink is dry on the D.A.'s paperwork. We've got talk, we've got conspiracy, but no confessions. You see anything in there that we can nail him on? Drugs, anything like that?"

"I wish," Kono groaned. "Listen, I'd better get back out there before Danny decides to adopt all the Sopranos as relatives."

"Be careful," Chin warned her. "Hanolo's not big enough to be a major player on the mainland, but he's still plenty dangerous."

"I will. What do we do if he doesn't give us enough for a conviction?"

Steve leaned over to speak into the cell. "Then we set up another meet. If we're patient, he'll give us what we want."

Kono exited the ladies room, having tucked her cell phone back into the slender purse she'd hung over her shoulder, wishing that the bag was large enough to hide a handgun of her own. _Not in this lifetime_, she thought sadly. _Besides, Hanolo's people searched it when Danny made contact._ The Five-O people had expected that, had prepared for it. No guns to raise suspicions; a local girl with more hormones than brains wouldn't be carrying a gun in her purse.

Flash of irritation, at the situation and at herself. Kono didn't _need_ a handgun. All she needed was a free hand or foot and a moment's surprise to use them. Handguns tended not to work all that well unless someone was actually pulling the trigger. Okay, so maybe wanting a gun in a Gucci wasn't so bright. Kono would make it up to herself by bringing down—

Hanolo was there in the hall, outside of the restrooms. He wasn't alone.

No, actually, Hanolo _was_ alone, because the man bleeding on the floor at Hanolo's feet couldn't actually be called a man any more. 'Corpse' was the more accurate term. Eyes wide open, mouth in an agonized 'o' of shock and disbelief; yeah, 'corpse' fit, never mind waiting for the coroner. The blood on the knife in Hanolo's hand told the story more clearly than anything. He looked up first in surprise, then outright anger at the unexpected witness.

_I'm a local girl, looking to score a nice evening, and I've just come up with a heavy load of reality. What do I do now?_ Kono opened her mouth to shriek in not-so-simulated shock.

"Bitch!" Hanolo slapped her across the face before the sound could emerge, and Kono's shriek turned into a much smaller whimper. She staggered back against the wall, half-stunned more by the sudden turn of events than the blow. _You wanted something to nail this guy, Steve. Murder good enough for you?_

Hanolo recognized immediately what had happened. "Sonnuva—" he swore, grabbing her by the arm. "What the hell are you doing here, bitch?"

Kono tried to shrink away, tried to act like a scared chick in over her head—and found that it didn't take much acting, not with the bloody dripping knife held in front of her. She had no doubt that Peter Hanolo would use it again if she gave him half an excuse.

Hanolo dragged her back into the main room of the bar. "Amatullo!" he shouted. "Look at this! Look at what your bitch has done!" He threw Kono to the floor in front of everyone, chairs sliding and falling as she connected with them. A spilled beer puddled in front of her.

"She ain't my bitch," Danny immediately shot back, jumping to his feet. "I just picked her up in a bar, paid for a couple of drinks. What's she done?"

Hanolo held up his knife, still covered in blood, his bulk huge with menace. "What do you think she did? She saw this!"

Danny went on the offensive. "You stupid, or what, killing somebody in your own place? What kind of moron are you?"

"Me? You're the big mainland _haole_ who brought her here. You get rid of her, and she better not be around to say anything. You hear me, _brudder_? You do your woman right now, right here."

Could it get any worse? Hanolo wanted Danny to kill her, in front of everyone, and if he didn't they'd both be dead. The handguns that were now firmly held by every one of Hanolo's men said that there wasn't a chance for either of them to walk out of here alive if that didn't happen.

_Save yourself, Danny. Bring the bastard down. Get out of here, and testify that Hanolo just killed that poor slob in the back hall, and me in this bar_.

Danny, however, wasn't finished.

"You can go to hell," Danny told Hanolo indignantly, chest stuck out. "I _paid_ for her! I bought her _drinks!_ This bitch _owes_ me!" He shoved his face forward. "I'm gonna take this little pineapple back to my room, and I'm gonna get my money's worth out of her, _then_ I'll do her. You hear me?"

_Go, Danny!_

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><p>"Code word!" Steve McGarrett was out of the van and running before Danny could finish saying 'pineapple', Chin right behind him.<p>

Points for the mainland cop: they had it on tape. Danny had just nailed the bastard, telling the world that Hanolo—or someone in his gang—had just committed murder. Not quite enough for an airtight case but Lt. Commander McGarrett didn't intend for that to be the only piece of evidence. No, he expected that two fine and upstanding members of Hawaii Five-O would be appearing in a courtroom, addressing a judge, jury, and a couple of attorneys, telling them that the world would be better off without the presence of one Peter Hanolo on the streets of Honolulu.

That meant, however, that at least one of those two fine upstanding Five-O members would have to be _alive_ to testify.

Steve burst in through the door, shoulder-rolling to the side. "Five-O! Hands in the air!" he barked, sensing more than seeing Chin taking up a similar position to the other side of the door, handgun clenched in two fists.

_Bang!_ That was the signal for gunfire to erupt, and Steve dodged to avoid the stream of bullets headed in his direction. He hastily pulled down a table, using the solid surface as cover, hoping that none of the guns possessed enough power to put a piece of lead through the dense particleboard. Out of the corner of his eye he saw both Danny and Kono dart out of the line of fire, and inwardly cheered. Neither one was armed, and he couldn't afford to lose either of them.

He needed to end this fast. _Jump up; fire_.

A body slumped down behind a table, groaning. Four more to go. The sound of a slamming door suggested that the few of Hanolo's men in the back room had just escaped into the night. That was okay with Five-O; they were after the Big Kahuna himself.

Kono wasn't cowering in the corner. She snuck up on Hanolo, the man's attention on Steve and Chin. She grabbed his wrist—the one with the gun—and yanked.

Hanolo yelped, and whipped around at this new threat, amazed when the gun dropped out of his hand without his ordering the action. "Bitch—"

Palm-strike to the face, cutting the word off. Blood sprang out of his nose.

Hanolo roared in pain and fury, swinging his own fist, putting his not inconsiderable weight behind it. If it had landed, one rookie cop would have been doing rehab time for the next several months. Instead, Kono blocked the clumsy move and almost nonchalantly put a knee where it would do the most good. Hanolo's roar turned into an agonized whimper, and his suddenly weakened knees dumped him to the beer-stained floor. His bloody knife clattered onto the wooden planks beside him.

No time to admire Kono's handiwork. Steve's attention was focused on the _haole_ that Kono had talked about earlier, the one who looked halfway intelligent. The man was small but deadly fast, and the knife in his hand gave him a reach equal to Steve's. Steve moved in; he had to take this man down fast before he escaped.

A shout; Danny had one of Hanolo's men in his grasp and even as Steve watched, delivered one to the gut and followed it up with a haymaker to the jaw. The man's eyes rolled back in his head, and he sagged. Another one down; score one for the mainlander.

"Look out!" Chin yelled.

There he was, a local by the looks of him, with a handgun pointed straight at Steve himself. No chance to defend himself; the man was hidden behind his own table, the heavy wood shielding his body. Steve threw himself to one side, knowing that he wouldn't be fast enough—

Chin's shout alerted the man to his own danger: Chin was moving into position for a shot—but out in the open. The man shifted his aim to focus on this new threat. He fired.

Slow motion:

Chin firing back. Chin's bullet burying itself in the table. Chin crumpling to the floor.

_Blood_.

Danny launching himself from across the room. Hitting the table-shield. Bowling over the gunman. Grabbing his gun. Taking him down.

Choices: go after the _haole_ with the knife, escaping through the back, or stay with his team? Steve snarled, wanting to clone himself on the spot.

"I'm…okay, Steve…" Chin grabbed his arm, pain etched over his features. "Go after him."

Too late. The man was gone, into the night.

But they had Hanolo and most of his men, and it was a righteous bust. The other guy could wait.

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><p>"Danny, go with Kono," Steve ordered harshly, dividing his attention between the man on the stretcher and the crowd of blue-uniformed HPD officers who had arrived in the nick of time to help with the clean up.<p>

"Steve—" Kono objected.

Chin himself did the interrupting, not bothering to pick up his head from the stretcher to address her. He could have done it, but it would have been a waste of precious energy. "It's your bust, cuz; enjoy it. You earned it. I'm okay, and Bossman here is gonna make sure I stay that way."

"But—"

"He's right, Kono. One of us has to do this, and you and I have formal statements to prepare." Danny took her arm, gently urging the rookie cop along.

"Go," Steve ordered once more. "I'll make sure Chin gets what he needs. You two handle the scene here. Make sure that Hanolo doesn't wiggle out of this one." He sent a baleful glare off into the streetlamp-lighted night toward the group of men who were being towed, arms cuffed behind them, into sturdy black and whites.

"Besides, my arm's not bad, cuz." Chin tried to comfort Kono. "I'll be in and out of the ER before you know. Before the ink is dry on the charges," he amended. "A couple of antibiotic pills, and I'll be as good as new."

"The ink is dry as soon as it comes out of the printer." Kono was unimpressed with his analogy—and still worried.

Chin waved his good arm and, wincing, put it back down so that it didn't jostle the bad. "Whatever. Just make sure that he doesn't walk. Okay, cuz?"

"Yeah." It was not okay, but Kono was allowing herself to be talked into the right course of action.

"Let's get you out of here, Chin." Steve helped the two paramedics to slide the stretcher into the ambulance, hauling himself inside to sit on the bench beside his team member. "I'll call you two from the hospital."


	2. Long Time, No See

"You're kidding me, right?" This couldn't be happening. Kono stared at Danny in disbelief. "I mean, the ink really _isn't_ dry on the arrest charges. How could Hanolo be getting out of here? He was in a damn shoot out with us!"

Danny's return smile was grim, leaning on the desk beside her, looking away from the computer screen that was flashing the bad news. "Get used to it, Kono. Just because he's a two-bit hood doesn't mean that he can't hire expensive attorneys to twist everything around. His lawyers are saying that this is all a big misunderstanding. Consider yourself lucky he's not walking out tonight; it'll be after the hearing tomorrow. If we're lucky, he'll have to post a big, fat bail."

"Yeah, right," Kono snarled. "Like I didn't see him with a knife in his hand over a dead body."

"You wanna know what their story is? The guy crawled in from the back alley and handed the knife to Hanolo, then up and died. You didn't see Hanolo plant the blade in the guy's gut because it never happened. How's that for a joke?"

"I'm not laughing." She wasn't. "You think any judge is going to buy it?"

"Hopefully not, but I'm not sure that they'll have any choice. It's our word against theirs, and Hanolo's lawyers are going to go for an entrapment defense. What we've got in our favor is Chin's tape. The bail's gonna be set pretty high," Danny added, "and it'll take him a while to arrange. Hanolo's not likely to run. Besides, can you really see Hanolo giving up all of his expensive stuff around here to go live like a regular guy on the mainland with no money? He'd never make it there." Danny tried to cheer her up. "Try to imagine Peter Hanolo saying, 'you want fries with that?' in Backwoods, Idaho."

Small smile in return. "I guess."

Danny took what successes he could get. "So, you've filled out the arrest warrants, you've put in the paperwork, you've contacted the D.A.'s office for them to get their underpaid asses over here; what else is left before we blow this popsicle stand?" He snapped his fingers. "I know! You've got a written statement to prepare."

Scrunched eyebrows. The smile dipped, corners down.

"C'mon, Kono. You just love writing reports," Danny cajoled.

"Do not."

Not giving up. "We'll grab a cup of java," Danny promised her, "and then we'll hit the keyboard. I got one, too," he reminded her, "and believe you me, I've written like _thousands_ more reports than you have. I got phrases memorized like lines in a play, and I can spit 'em out faster than pineapple seeds from a pina colada."

Kono had to giggle at that. "Danny, pineapples don't have seeds. They're bromeliads."

"Like I know what a bromeliad is? Ask me about factories on the Jersey Turnpike that send out perfume that a skunk would gag at." Danny gestured expansively. "C'mon. Coffee. There's one good thing about this pineapple-infested hole we're living in and you and I are going to enjoy it: coffee."

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><p>Chin clutched the small piece of paper in his hand that was his ticket to a pain-free night of sleep, allowing Steve to help him on with the remnants of his shirt.<p>

"My best shirt," he groaned. "You think someone can patch the hole?"

Steve held up the tee shirt in the air, admiring the picture of the surfer stitched in white on a black and blue background. The picture was now less than pristine; blood smeared the front end of the surfboard with a vague suggestion that the surfer had recently battled a Great White. "This is your best shirt? Dude, it's a tee."

"What can I say? I like to be comfortable." Chin swung his legs off of the stretcher, sitting upright so that he could slide the shirt over his head. Blood drained out of his face, leaving him white and trembling. "Damn." He tried to suck in additional oxygen from the surrounding air.

"Hey, guy, don't fall over on me." Steve grabbed his friend by the good arm, steadying him. "You sure you're ready to go home?"

"I've been ready since before I got here," Chin grumbled, taking another deep breath, pretending that circles weren't wavering around his field of vision. Steve wasn't buying it, so Chin tried to distract him by changing the subject. "Kono and Danny make out okay with Hanolo?"

"'Bout like we expected." Steve still kept his hand on the man's shoulder, worried that he might yet collapse. "Bail hearing's set for tomorrow afternoon—today, I mean," he corrected, acknowledging the hour. "I hear that Danny made a bet with Kono as to who would get to bed first, Hanolo or Kono." He helped Chin to slide his head through the neck of the tee, slipping the man's injured arm with its bulky white dressing through the equally damaged sleeve.

Chin hissed with discomfort, turning it into a fierce cough. "Probably has a lawyer on call for stuff like this. He'll be sleeping in his own bed inside of twenty four hours."

"Lawyer's making our yearly salary in a week," Steve agreed.

"At least we can look in a mirror."

"Speak for yourself," Steve grinned. "Have you seen yourself? You must have hit a table or chair or something on your way down. Your face is not a pretty sight, brother."

Chin grimaced. "I should have known that I'd be in for something like this. Every time Kono's involved, the collateral damage involves me. She ever tell you about me teaching her how to ride a bike?"

"Dirt bike?"

"Tricycle." The remembering smile turned into another wince, pulling on bruised flesh. "Maybe another time. Let's get out of here." He slid his feet to the floor, putting his weight down.

Mistake. More blood drained out, and Chin's eyes started to roll up.

Steve swiftly caught the man under his arms and wrestled him back onto the stretcher, alarmed at the beads of sweat that dotted his friend's white face, calling for assistance.

A couple of nurses appeared from behind the cubicle curtains. One took a single look and instantly knew what had happened. She grinned. "You think maybe you want a wheelchair to get him out to your car?"

* * *

><p>"They said it was the pain-killers." Steve looked at the small vial in his hand that Danny had handed over to him. "Give him a night to sleep them off, and he'll be better in the morning." He glanced over toward the closed door that led to the single bedroom, knowing that the man in the bed behind that door was sleeping so soundly that it came close to unconsciousness. "Best thing for him." He stretched creaking muscles, knowing that it was after three in the morning. "Listen, you two head on home. We'll plan to hit the office around noon, clean up whatever paperwork the D.A. needs on this. I'll camp out here in case Chin needs anything."<p>

"Nope," Kono told him with entirely too much energy for the early morning hour. "I'm staying. He's my cousin, and besides, I've done this before." She winked at Steve. "_And_ I fit better on the sofa. You'll hang off over the ends."

She had a point, and she likely knew where the extra towels were stored. Steve glanced over the furnishings, admiring the serene way the furniture fit together into a small oasis of calm. Was that bonsai real, or a really nicely made silk fake? Knowing Chin, Steve thought it was the real deal, just like the rest of Chin. This was a good place that Chin was living in, evolved over the years, if Steve was any judge.

Danny too had had enough for one night. "Your car, my car," he said, jerking his thumb toward the curb outside. "We leave Kono here for the night, and get some well-earned shut-eye. She can bring Chin into the office tomorrow, since I'm going to assume that he won't be driving with two of those little babies on board." He indicated the small vial of prescription narcotics that Steve set down onto the table in the kitchenette. "Might run somebody over."

With a sigh, Steve gave in. His own bed was calling with siren songs of comfort; it was late with too little sleep and too much tension for one day. He turned to Kono. "You sure you're okay here?"

"I'm good," she assured him. "Go home, Boss. See you in the morning. The afternoon," she corrected herself.

* * *

><p>Danny parked his car in parking area allotted for the apartment complex, still amazed at this place after all the months that he'd lived here. No garages. Nothing underground, or at least, almost nothing. He couldn't imagine growing up in a place with no basements, no crawl spaces in which to creep around, playing hide and seek and hiding out from his parents. Cops and robbers; how did you play cops and robbers without a place for the robbers to hide out?<p>

Grace seemed to be making out okay, though. Danny couldn't help the little smile that played over his lips every time he thought about his daughter. She was the reason that he was living and working in this pineapple-infested hellhole instead back home in a decent place like New Jersey. How did people live without being able to go into the Big Apple, for shows, for museums, for culture? Danny wanted to take his little girl to the better things in life, to show her a good time, to teach her more than how to split open a coconut with a machete.

_Be honest with yourself, Danny_, he said to himself. _You wanted to see if you could get Rachel back, too. You knew that Stan made a lot of money, and you were hoping that it wouldn't matter. Does it? Hell if I know. One minute she's acting like old times, and the next she's taking me back to court._

More honesty: Grace was doing better than okay. She had a lot of friends, making good grades at school—could Danny say that she would be better off with him?

Actually, yes, he could. He was her father, dammit! A kid belonged with her father, not just her mother, and if it took living and working and trying to make enough money to eat in this place in the middle of the ocean, then he would do it.

He reached for the doorknob to his place—and stopped.

A cop's eyes, with a cop's instincts. Danny had built those instincts over the years through sweat and hard work and the occasional mistake, and they weren't letting him down now, even at three in the morning. There were tiny little scratches around the secure lock that kept everyone out of his apartment, and those scratches hadn't been there when he locked up the place almost twenty four hours ago.

Pretty clear: someone had been trying to get inside. Question was: did they? Danny gingerly reached out and tried the doorknob—unlocked.

He swallowed the curse that wanted to emerge. Random robbery? Probably. Too bad for whoever broke in; Danny Williams didn't have anything worth stealing, not unless you counted the small plasma TV that you could practically buy for the cost of a cup of coffee these days from the discount stores. Come to think of it, that was where Danny had gotten that particular TV. He sure wasn't going to try to ship everything out from back East. Cheap stuff, that was what Danny had decorated his place in. He was going to save his money for his little girl.

Or this could be someone a little more dangerous. Danny wasn't about to kid himself; he'd put away plenty of scum on this island before he ever knew that there was a guy named Lt. Commander Steve McGarrett or any kind of unit called Hawaii Five-O, and there was always the possibility that one or more of those scumbags had recently gotten out of the cell that they deserved to rot in. He'd put away a bunch more back home, crooks with more friends than smarts, and he wouldn't put it past any of 'em to decide that a vacation on a sunny beach taking pot shots at the cop that taken them down was just the thing to do for Spring Break.

Neither was Detective Williams stupid. Going in to search his place alone was not about to happen, not when he had a cell phone in his pocket. He eased that cell phone out of his pocket and flipped it open. He tabbed the speed dial for Steve McGarrett; if Danny was going to have to be awake for a few more hours, then so could the genius who had dragged him onto Five-O.

A shadow appeared from one end of the corridor. Danny turned, going for his gun—and stopped.

It was Hanolo's mainlander, the guy who'd escaped from the bar, his hand curled around his own gun, the barrel pointed straight at Danny's gut. Two more of Hanolo's men were behind the mainlander, equally well armed, and a third closed off the other end of the apartment corridor.

Danny froze.

"Hey, Amatullo," one of the men called, keeping his voice down so as not to disturb the neighbors. "Long time, no see, brudder."


	3. Fun Day at the Office

Six hours of sleep: that was more than enough for Steve McGarrett, and the oversized cup of black coffee only put the edge in his step as it burned his hand through the inadequate insulation of the cup. He inhaled another sip, reducing the level of the scalding liquid inside.

Not that he wanted to admit it, but there were times when this was a pretty good gig. Dammit, he actually _enjoyed_ taking down the people who wanted to ruin these islands for the rest of the world. _Never thought I'd say it_, he mused to himself, taking another sip, _but this cop stuff isn't half bad. Not where I thought I'd end up—still going to keep up the connections with my guys in the military—but I can handle this stuff for a while. We'll see where it leads_.

At the moment it led to the inner sanctum of Five-O, where the computers and the heartbeat lived, and Steve's feet were taking him there. Steve liked that spot, too; it reminded him of Command Central, where the planning of the various missions had taken place during his military days. Out in the field, the body was king, guided by his brains. Here, inside the cocoon of technology, was where he realized that half the joy of the job was out-thinking the competition.

He was the first to arrive, the cool of the inner room replacing the heat from outside. Steve took a moment to allow his eyes to adjust, lifting the cup of coffee once again to his lips, declining to set it down on the table with the embedded computer screen that was such a valuable asset to their cases. Danny had started to call him last night, and Steve wondered what that was about. Maybe a prank call, to let Steve know that cop work wasn't all fun and games? Maybe something that Danny had forgotten to tell him earlier and didn't think could wait? Guess it could wait after all; the man hadn't bothered to leave a message. Steve's phone had already been sitting on the nightstand next to the bed while a short but very necessary shower had been taking place, which was why Steve hadn't picked it up in the first place.

Steve glanced at the clock on the wall, noting that it wasn't yet quite noon. With a sigh, he wandered into his own office to sit down before his personal office computer to go through the email, dismissing the invitations to play on the local cops' soccer tournament against the fire department. Worthy cause—local kid's hangout—but he had too much to do and too little time to do it in. Likewise, he skipped through the listings of local crimes, knowing that he couldn't keep all the details in his head. If he needed them, he'd have Chin run a search query. The man was _good_ with the uber high-tech equipment in the room next door.

The other three should be in within the next few minutes. Danny would come flying in at the last minute, tie neatly choking him around the neck. Chin he expected to take the day off to recuperate, although Steve was laying fifty-fifty odds that the man would insist on coming into the office. It all depended on how much influence Kono had over her cousin—and how much pain Chin's arm would give him. Although Steve wouldn't put it past Kono to slip a couple of those little white pills into her cousin's morning orange juice…

"Hey, Steve." Kono walked in, bright-eyed, looking as though she had spent yesterday relaxing on the beach. _Ah, the joys of youth_…

Chin didn't look so good but Steve had to admit that he didn't look all that bad, either. His arm was in the sling that the nice folks at the hospital had given him and Steve, after a closer look, could tell that the man was feeling no pain. Steve fixed him with a stern eye. "You didn't drive in, right? You didn't bounce off both sides of the road?"

"Right." Kono answered for him. "He's stuck here until one of us decides to take pity on him and take him home. Which, if he's not careful, will be very soon," she added.

Chin grimaced. "I'd forgotten how bossy she can get when she thinks she's right," he confided to Steve.

"I _am_ right."

"She _is_ right." The two responses came out almost in stereo.

Steve grinned. "You heard it here first, bro. Listen, you see about putting together your report of what happened last night, then I'm sending you home. You deserve it. While you're doing that, Kono and I will see how Hanolo has been spending his own time and what lawyers he has under his thumb."

"Reports: such joy. For this, I came in?" Chin looked around. "Where's Danny? Shouldn't he be joining us?"

"Maybe he overslept. Speaking of which, he tried to call after I got home. Maybe he forgot that he had Grace for the day, or something like that."

"I don't think so," Kono mused. "Wasn't he griping yesterday about having to switch his time with her? Something about Rachel taking her to the circus?"

"Yeah. Maybe he forgot that, too." Steve tabbed his own phone, and got voicemail. "Yo, Danno! Wake up and get your ass in here. You think you're the only one who was up late last night, Mr. Big Shot from The East Coast?"

Kono was going through her own email. "Maybe he figured that we'd have to make a formal court appearance. See, here it is: invitation to formally charge one Peter Hanolo on offenses too numerous and heinous to name in a single email. The D.A.'s moving fast on this one."

Chin leaned over her shoulder. "Sure is. That's a command performance for the D.A. in front of the judge to see how high we can set the bail. You bring your lip gloss, cuz?"

She made a face at him. "That was last night, _cuz_. I don't need lip gloss for this appearance. We've got Hanolo dead to rights. We've got my testimony, Danny's, and the tape to back us up."

"Three hours from now," Steve noted. He looked around the room in annoyance. "Where is Danny? The judge and the D.A. are not going to be happy if he misses this appointment."

Kono got to her feet. "I could swing by his place."

Steve shook his head. "I'll do it. You work on your testimony, what you're going to say to the judge. Chin, coach her."

"I don't need coaching!"

"You do if I say you do," Steve told the rookie with a grin to take the sting out of his words. "You—and the rest of us—put in a lot of effort on this case, and it's not going to go down because one cop can't get his butt in gear and the other is left stuttering on the stand."

"We've got the tape. Tell me how Hanolo's going to explain that away."

"Out of context," Chin told her immediately. "It was a joke. Hanolo was exaggerating. I can come up with a dozen more ways to twist the words, Kono, without thinking twice." _Remember what happened to my career as a cop?_

"Not going to happen," Steve said firmly, "because _both_ cops are going to be prepared to testify at Hanolo's trial, whenever they decide to hold it." He stood up and walked to the door. "I'll haul Sleepyhead out of his beauty rest, and when I get back, I'll expect to hear you singing like a rock star, Kono." He opened the door. "Hey."

An office worker was walking up with a large envelope in her hands, one large enough to hold a sheaf of official papers that were not folded in polite thirds. "For you, Mr. McGarrett."

"Thanks, May," Steve told her automatically, furrowing his brows and accepting the envelope. "Uh, is this something I want?"

She shrugged. "It was dropped off the boys in the brown truck, and it went through the detector without a beep as well as the irradiator. You want me to take it to the lab for further testing before you open it?"

Steve shook it; there were pieces of paper inside but nothing that rattled. "That's okay." He turned to the other two. "Are we expecting anything?"

Chin shook his head. "No, and we don't have anything outstanding that would justify sending a warrant. Open it."

"You got it." Steve slipped a long finger under the flap of the envelope and ripped through the seal. He slipped out the contents and dumped them onto the table.

Steve froze.

"Sonuva—" Chin bit off the curse that rose unbidden. Kono only hissed in horror.

It was a head shot of Danny, but not as they had seen him last. No, Danny had been tired but triumphant as he jumped into his car outside of Chin's place, waving at Steve to pull out ahead of him. He hadn't had two black eyes, one completely swollen shut. There hadn't been a long cut across his cheek, leaking blood. There hadn't been more blood seeping out of his mouth, the jaw hanging slack.


	4. Crossfire

The Forensics team had been called in and was on their tail, but Steve McGarrett wasn't about to wait and neither were Chin or Kono. Steve barely waited for the engine of his car to shut off before he was dashing into the apartment building where Danny made his home.

Neighbors stared as the trio dashed up the steps, intent on their destination. At the top of the stairs, Steve stopped his team. "Forensics," he warned. "Let's not destroy any evidence."

The corridor to Danny's apartment was empty and bare, without even so much as a stray bag of trash to mar the length of the hall. Even the bulbs in the corridor lights had been replaced; Steve remembered Danny complaining just last week that three had gone out at one time, and that the maintenance people were on Island Time to fix the problem. Kono had giggled at the analogy.

She wasn't giggling now.

"Whatever happened here, there wasn't a struggle," Steve noted. "Even the paint's intact on the wall. Nobody slammed up against it."

"Scratches on the lock."

"Door's unlocked." Kono pushed at the door handle gingerly, using the edge of her tee to prevent smudging any possible fingerprints. She toed the door open, peering inside. "Danny?"

Steve slipped past her, forcing himself to remain calm. _No dead bodies on the carpet. No blood_. "Danny! Danny, you in here?"

Chin too peered in. "Nothing overturned. Whatever happened, it wasn't violent."

"I don't think he ever walked inside." Steve examined the surroundings, paying particular attention to the door frame. "There's nothing in the kitchen, he didn't throw anything onto the sofa. No food on the counter."

"Nothing in the bedroom." Kono emerged from her own inspection. "The bed's still made, and the alarm clock was never set to get him up for noon. It's still on seven AM." She too looked around, puzzled. "Why? Did whoever it was take him outside the apartment? Why did they leave the door unlocked?"

"Bait," Steve decided grimly. "They knew that Danny would notice the unlocked door, would be focused on the interior of his place. They went in behind him, and took him out."

"They had to have surprised him," Chin agreed. "Otherwise, there would have been gunplay, and someone would have called 911."

"Scenario," Steve said, thinking out loud. "Hanolo—and let's assume that it's him until proven otherwise—Hanolo talks to the lawyers that he arranged with chump change. He decides that without a couple of inconvenient witnesses, the case is going nowhere. So he decides to take out the witnesses."

Chin wasn't so sure. "That's moving awfully fast, even for Hanolo. Wasn't he still dragging his lawyers out of bed at that hour?"

Kono frowned. "Steve, that doesn't make sense. Why Danny? You'd think he'd take a crack at me. I'm the one who saw him with the knife."

Steve had the answer for that. "You never went home last night, Kono."

"What…oh." Her voice trailed off, and she looked entirely too young for Steve McGarrett's conscience at the moment. Why had he ever taken a rookie onto one of the most dangerous assignments on the islands?

_Because she's a damn good cop, despite her youth_, whispered back a little voice inside. _How old were you when you enlisted? Younger than she is now._

Steve shoved away the thoughts that interfered, chief among them the whereabouts of his partner. "He's alive," he said grimly. "If Hanolo intended to have Danny killed, we'd have found the body right here." _On the carpet. Blood soaking into the fibers_.

Chin seized on that. "So he wants Danny alive. Why?"

"He's trying to frighten me into refusing to testify," Kono realized. "He wants me to think that he'll do the same thing to me."

"He _will_ do the same thing to you, cuz, and worse if you give him the chance," Chin told her. He turned to Steve. "What do we do now? How do we get Danny back?"

"Good question. The next move is up to Hanolo. Or, rather, his people." Steve listened to the noise outside the apartment. "Sounds like Forensics has arrived." He paused. "I'm sending some of them over to your place, Kono. Give them a key; I want them to check it out."

"I'll go with them." Kono started to move.

Steve halted her. "No. I want you back at Headquarters, waiting for the D.A. Chin, you go with her. Take the car. I'll catch a lift from the Forensics guys when I'm done."

"You got it, boss." Chin held out his hand for the keys. "I'll drive."

"Not a chance," Kono butted in. "_I'm_ driving. _You're_ on drugs. Steve, what are you going to be doing?"

"I'm going to check out the neighborhood. See if anyone saw anything." He jerked his head at them. "You two move along. I'll talk to Forensics."

Steve watched them head down the stairs, pausing only briefly to exchange grim hellos with the uniformed Forensics team. He too headed for the lead examiner. "Terry, I want everything you can come up with, no matter how small. Send another team to Kono's place; I think whoever did this wanted her too but didn't realize that she spent the night taking care of Chin."

"You got it, Steve." The forensics team leader motioned to the rest of the squad behind to move in. "You get this bastard, Steve. Danny—I owe him one. A big one."

"You do?" Something else that Steve didn't know about his partner.

"Yeah. He got me this gig. I needed to get out of where I was, and he put in a recommendation for me." The Forensics team leader looked away. "You get him back safe, Steve, no matter what it takes. We'll get you the evidence you need to find him."

"Thanks." There was a story there. Steve resolved that he would find his partner and ask him. _You can't ask him if he's dead._

_So I won't let him be dead_.

He stepped onto the bright street, seeing Kono and Chin across the way, getting into Steve's car.

He saw something else, too: the glint of sunshine on metal.

It could have been anything. It could have been a stray sunbeam bouncing off a streetlamp. It could have been the flicker of a neon light, or the glint of a window pane, or even a shiny gum wrapper dancing down the street ahead of a breeze.

It wasn't. Steve knew it as soon as he saw it. He didn't need to identify the rest in order to yell out a warning.

"Gun!"

Chin heard and reacted. He barreled into his cousin, knocking her to the dusty road.

A bullet smashed through the car window, just behind where Kono's head had been positioned.

_Defense_. Steve exploded into action. _Crossfire_, so that his people could get under cover. Steve aimed at the point where the shot had come from, knowing that his handgun didn't have nearly the range it needed to do the job.

Not the point; he needed to give Kono time to pull Chin back behind the vehicle. Steve pulled the trigger three times, sending bullets flying back at the gunman, afraid to look at his people. Chin was rolling on the ground in agony; had he been hit once more? Would this one be fatal? "Kono!" he yelled.

"Go after him!" she yelled back. "I've got him!"

Too late—Steve heard the roar of a 'cycle from the back alley, and knew that it was the gunman. He halted in his tracks, grinding his teeth in frustration. More evidence to sift through, but no Danny Williams. Steve would put Terry and crew onto it in hopes that it would lead somewhere promising but that would have to wait for something more important.

Steve made his long legs carry him to Kono's car, heart in his mouth with fear. "Chin?"

Panting but no fresh blood, and Kono wouldn't be holding her cousin in her arms that way if she thought that he was about to die. "I'm…okay…Steve." Chin hung onto his damaged arm as though afraid it would fall off.

Maybe it would. "I'm calling for an ambulance."

"No," burst out of Chin. "No, we need to get Kono back some place safe," he insisted. "Steve, that gunman was aiming for her! It's her that they want, not me!"

Chin had a point; a very good point. Steve cast a worried glance around their surroundings, threat-assessing automatically. "Yeah," he said slowly. "Yeah, you're right. He was aiming for Kono." He focused on her. "Let's get Chin into the car and back to Headquarters." _Let_ one of the local beat cops try to stop them for driving with a broken window.

"I'm okay, Steve," Chin insisted, trying to put his arm back into its sling and stopping as it told him in no uncertain terms that movement was out of the question. Kono held on tightly to him, clearly wondering what she could do.

Steve hooked his hands underneath Chin's arms, bodily lifting him to his feet—and pausing as Chin realized that standing up was beyond his capabilities. "Get the door, Kono," he ordered, and together the two of them maneuvered the third member of their team into the car, safely off of his feet. Steve scanned the man's face, wondering if he ought to insist that the man head back to the hospital.

No, this time Chin could do without. The lines of pain were etched deep, but nothing that a couple of little white pills with an attitude couldn't handle and it didn't look as though there was any more damage from Chin's heroic dive to save his cousin. All the man needed was some time to get beyond the pain. Kono too stood there, biting her lip, worried about him. Steve, however, needed to get her back to the safety of Headquarters where a stray sniper couldn't get to her.

The facts scurried through Steve's brain as he drove, Kono scanning the exterior for any additional threats. Hanolo had moved fast, faster than Steve could give him credit for. Hanolo was an island boy, a bully, and he'd bullied his way into an illegal fortune, but he wasn't the smartest card in the deck. No, this ploy smacked of someone else pulling the strings, someone else who had as much or more to lose if Hanolo went down.

That meant that Hanolo was fronting for someone. Question was: who?

He'd put Chin on that angle, figuring out what some of the power shifts were among Hawaii's underground. The man could do that sitting down, and right now _off his feet_ was the best position for the man to be in. Steve spared a guilty glance for his team member in the car seat next to him. He should never have allowed the man to come into Headquarters, even with Kono playing chauffeur. Going to a crime scene, to Danny's apartment, had been a worse error in judgment, never mind that Steve McGarrett needed Chin's eyes to ferret out the clues that Steve himself would miss.

"Like you had a choice?" Chin never opened his eyes.

_Hell, was the man psychic?_ "Yeah, I had a choice. I could have sent your ass back home, where it belongs."

Chin didn't move anything except his mouth. "And right about now you'd be scraping Kono up off of the pavement, bro."

He had a point, not that Steve was about to admit it. He caught sight of Kono in the back seat via the rear view mirror, hunched down and staring at the scenery as though the sniper had repositioned himself along the route. _That too is a possibility, Steve-my-boy. Let's see, what did the engine of that 'cycle sound like? Kawasaki? Nope; too light. Harley hog, maybe._

There were a lot of parked motorcycles along the road, and each one sent a shiver down Steve's spine. It had been so close for Kono!

And he still had the very realistic possibility of a job opening on his team.

* * *

><p>This wasn't the first time he'd gotten the crap beaten out of him, and he didn't like it any better this go around.<p>

To say that Danny Williams _hurt_ was like saying that Steve McGarrett was athletic: accurate but it left out an entire mountain of magnitude. His newest and greatest pain-in-the-ass partner wasn't merely active but took positive joy in doing things the hard way. Not only that, Steve McGarrett usually found a way to drag Danny along for the bumpy and bruised ride.

Danny had once—and once, only—tried to shift position from where Hanolo's boys had dumped him. The resultant discomfort—yeah, he liked that word: discomfort. It made this whole ordeal sound so much less than what it was—the discomfort had left him writhing in agony, and suggested that there were things inside him that were broken and best left in peace to heal.

Mainland _haole_ knew what he was doing. That was the bastard who was running things right now, with Hanolo as his mouthpiece. Cutler, that was the man's name. Come to think of it, Rachel had a cousin named Cutler, flew in for the wedding, and Danny hadn't liked him either. Probably some sort of distant relation. Kono had pegged the _haole_ right from the beginning, seeing him as the only one of Hanolo's crowd that knew what he was doing.

Didn't know where the hell they'd taken him, either. Just some place out of the city. They'd tied him up good, stuck him in the trunk of their car, and drove for like half an hour, maybe longer. It was dawn when they'd stopped, and Danny hadn't had much of chance to look at the scenery outside before they hustled him into this shanty. All he could tell was that the neighbors weren't within earshot. How did he know that? Because he shouted a couple of times, before Cutler and a couple of others broke some more ribs. Nobody came to investigate, and Cutler didn't seem too worried about it.

Damn, he hurt! And what hurt most of all was that—assuming that he made it out of this alive—he wouldn't be able to see his daughter for a couple of weeks. One look at his face and she'd run screaming out of the room, and it would take at least those two weeks to persuade Rachel that allowing Grace to visit him wasn't going to cause irreparable psychological damage. An image of his daughter's face floated in front of his mind's eye like a rope for a drowning man to hang onto, and he held onto it for all he was worth.

_Keep safe, Grace. Daddy's coming home. It may take me a little while, but I won't leave you_.


	5. Stall for Time

Chin plunged into the computer work at hand, allowing the distraction to take away his pain. There were already three files of information, all competing for his attention. He selected the one that seemed most pertinent to the search for Danny Williams. "Data's coming in, Steve. Forensics is at Kono's place right now."

"What did they find?" Kono drifted over to look.

Chin spared her a glance. "Same as at Danny's, coz. Scratches on the doorknob. Door unlocked; nobody home." _Getting the picture, coz? Your face could look just as bad as Danny's right about now. Maybe worse_.

"They didn't touch anything?"

"No, not even that tacky Buddha statue you have on the shelf."

"That tacky statue has a lot of sentimental value."

"And absolutely no financial worth at all." Chin moved on. "They found some footprints outside the window. At least one of the guys weighed about one forty, one fifty, probably just under five foot ten."

"Sounds like the _haole_ dude," Kono observed. "You remember him, Steve. The one who got away."

Yeah, Chin could see that Steve remembered him. The look on the Bossman's face made that an incontrovertible conclusion. The _haole_ was the one with the knife, who was willing to use that knife on Steve. Bastard had scuttled out through the back, probably sneaking around and waiting for a chance to turn the tables.

"Put together a composite, run it through facial identification," Steve ordered. "Let's see if we can put a name to a face. What's the word on the indictment? We hear from the D.A.'s office?"

"Here it is." Kono took the controls from Chin and pulled it up, and frowned. "Steve, they're demanding a call. What's up?"

"Good question." Steve pulled out his cell phone and dialed in the number. "Lt. Commander McGarrett. Yeah, that's right. Returning the call—McGarrett here. What's up?"

The other two waited in silence, staring at him. It didn't sound good.

It wasn't. Steve's face went dull red, then a chilling white. "How the hell did that happen?"

_How did what happen?_

"We handed it over to you, Inouye. Who dropped the ball?"

_Who screwed up?_

"You're damn right we're investigating. No, you keep that appointment on the calendar, Inouye. Kono will be there if I have to tie her to the witness stand."

_Why does the D.A. think that she wouldn't be?_

Steve hung up, and gave them the answers. "The tape," he said grimly.

"The tape of last night?" Kono asked. "Where Danny and I got Hanolo on record threatening to make Danny kill me? That tape?"

"The very one," Steve told her. "It's blank."

"What?" Chin couldn't believe his ears. "Not possible, Steve. I recorded that stuff myself and I did a partial playback early on to make sure that we were getting everything. That's not possible, Steve!"

Kono was horrified. "I listened to that tape too, Steve, after Danny and I notified the D.A.'s office to come over and file charges. I know it wasn't blank. What happened?"

"Good question," and it meant that they had more questions than answers. "Anybody have any bright ideas?"

Chin did. "Chain of custody," he said immediately, readjusting the sling around his arm. "I'll take that angle. There was only one tape in existence, and it was still viable last night. What time was that, Kono?"

"Two, maybe three AM," she told him, "right after Danny and I finished writing up the reports."

"Who had it?"

"I'll track down the records." Kono moved to one side of the table and began the computer search.

Chin started to stand, to edge closer to Steve, and immediately thought better of his actions when his arm began to throb once more. Steve noticed the action and took a step closer. He barely spoke above a whisper. "What?"

Chin didn't beat around the bush but he too kept his voice low. "This leaves Kono as the sole witness. You know that, Steve."

"Yeah." His boss tossed a glance at the young woman pouring through the computer files. "With Danny missing—" and neither of them could say _dead_, not yet. Maybe not ever. Sure as hell better not be _ever_—"and the tape erased, that means that without Kono, Hanolo walks."

"Which means that he's going to be after her with everything he's got."

"Yeah." This time Steve didn't look at her.

"She's tough, Steve."

"Yeah. But is she tough enough? She's a rookie, bro."

"She's grown up around cops. She knows her way."

"Yeah." It was more of a sound than an affirmation.

Time to get his boss out of the doldrums. "Facial recognition, Steve. Build the face, and I'll see if I can pin it to someone."

* * *

><p>They dragged him to his feet, cutting the ropes that bound his hands behind his back. Danny tried to take advantage of the situation, tried to take a swing at one of them.<p>

Cutler dodged easily, catching the fist and twisting Danny's arm behind him. "Save it, Williams. You're gonna need it."

How had he ended up on the floor? No matter; two brawny goons—islanders, by the looks of them—hauled him back onto his feet and held him there, since his knees were likely to dump him back on the filthy floor.

Not the best place that he'd ever found himself in, and that included the time back in Hoboken when he had taken part in the sting against that mob guy. What was the guy's name? Louie, was all that Danny could remember. Big son of a gun, liked to play with knives and pretty girls' faces. That was a bust that Officer Dan Williams had been proud of, and the operation that had put him in Investigations for good.

He was a detective, wasn't he? If he ever got himself out of this mess alive, he'd need to write up another report, just like he'd made Kono do a few short hours ago. Danny forced himself to dispassionately survey his surroundings: there was a post in the middle of the shanty, something solid enough to hold up the roof and keep the rain off of their heads. Was it raining? No, that was just the blood pounding through his ears. Dirt floor. Couple of pallets with filthy sheets on them in one corner, and a footlocker next to one of them. It was bright with sunshine outside, the rays pouring in to glint off the metal of the footlocker where the dust didn't absorb the photons. Danny stared through the window, hoping that something would look familiar.

"Tie 'im good to the post. I don't want him sliding down."

What the hell was this bastard planning? Whatever it was, Danny was sure that he wasn't going to like it.

* * *

><p>"Kono? Time to head over to the courthouse." Steve looked up from his work of trying to make the features of Knife Boy fit the facial ID bag of tricks. It wasn't working as well as he wanted. No matter how hard he tried, Steve hadn't yet been able to get the sneer onto the lips, or the hard glint in the guy's eye. <em>Bastard<em>. He shifted in his chair, wondering why such a comfortable piece of furniture had turned into a rock.

Kono stepped back from her work. "Chain of custody of the tape, Steve: we had it until we—me and Danny and Inouye," she stumbled over Danny's name—"until we listened to it after finishing up our reports. Inouye wanted to make sure that our reports correlated with the tape."

"Did they?"

"Danny's did. Mine needed some tweaking," Kono admitted honestly.

_Points for experience_. Steve resolved to make certain that Danny's experience wasn't lost forever.

He was also going to make sure that Kono had an opportunity to gain similar experience. He leaned back against the seat. "Turn the lead over to Chin," he ordered, "and get your vest, Kono. From now on, you're outside, you're wearing it. Got me?"

"Steve—" she made a face.

He wasn't having any of it. "You're the only thing that's keeping Hanolo from walking around as a free man," he told her, "and that paints a big fat target on your back. You make sure that the bullets bounce—" His cell phone interrupted.

Steve glanced at it, and did a double take. "Danny's number!" he snapped.

Chin didn't need an invitation. "On it." He tapped frantically at the computer controls, sending a trace into motion.

Steve counted down the seconds, knowing that he had eight rings before voicemail took over. Seconds mattered: time for Chin to trace the call. Time to triangulate the signal. Time for Danny Williams to stay alive.

_Time's up_. Steve hit the answer button. "McGarrett." He tabbed the speaker, so that the other two could hear.

The voice that issued forth was not that of his partner, no matter what the small screen on the phone said. "You know what we want."

_Stall for time_. "Suppose you tell me. Make it official."

"Don't get cute, McGarrett. You get the D.A. to drop the charges, or we'll kill Williams."

A few more seconds. Chin's trace hadn't yet located the whereabouts of the call, still needed time to triangulate from the cell phone towers. Kono's eyes were round with fear.

There were rules in the playbook for this kind of situation, and Steve used them. "How do I know he's still alive? Let me talk to him."

It was as if the voice on the other end of the call was waiting for the request. "Talk to the nice man, Williams. Tell him you want to go home now."

"Danno?" When had Steve's voice learned how to shake with fear?

_Maybe it was when you were listening to a similar call, not too long ago. Maybe it was when that bastard was holding a gun to your father's head, threatening to blow a hole through it. Maybe it was the very moment that you became an orphan_.

"Steve?" It was Danny, tired and in pain. The eight by ten glossy of his partner's swollen and beaten face floated in front of Steve's eyes. He couldn't help but look at Kono. How was the rookie taking this?

Not well. A spot of blood testified that she had bitten through her lip.

Danny wasn't finished. "Steve, no matter what, don't let these bastards win." The words were mumbled, trying to push past the swelling in his jaw.

Chin signaled, pumping his fist. _Got it!_

_Send SWAT!_

Steve would hold them there as long as possible. "Let him go," he ordered, knowing that Hanolo's men would do no such thing. "You kill a cop, every hand on the Island is going to be against you."

Already every available unit was hurtling toward the location that Chin had triangulated.

"You drop the charges against Hanolo," the voice returned coolly. "You do that, maybe I'll let him go."

More time. More time for the rescue to draw closer. Steve had to spin it out, give Danny's fellow cops the seconds they needed to get to the scene. Steve's hand itched to fling the phone to the floor and dash out after them.

"What's Hanolo to you?" Steve challenged. "Maybe with him out of the way, you step up in the organization. You want to be the Big Kahuna?"

"Not me, man. Not on these islands."

Clearly it was the _haole_ that had escaped. This was a mainlander that Steve was talking to. Didn't mean he was any less dangerous, not with Danno in his clutches. It did mean that he wasn't as familiar with the Islands as Steve and his team.

The computer in front of Chin had small little green dots on it, each one representing a cop bearing down on the place that Chin had triangulated. That place was in the middle of the Kahana Preserve, a spot with few roads and no way to make a fast entrance. No matter what, it would take upwards of thirty minutes for anyone to arrive.

It had already been two minutes. Twenty eight more to go.

"You drop the charges, I let him go," the voice continued. "The hearing this afternoon—I'm thinking that the judge is going to find not enough evidence to hold Hanolo. You get me?"

Steve flicked a glance at Kono. More blood on her lip. "You want Officer Kalakaua to take a hike on this one."

"Got it in one, McGarrett. You think you can do that?"

"Don't do it, Steve—"

_Crck!_

Danny's voice cut off.

Steve's blood went cold in the same instant. He'd heard the exact same sound, could identify it even after all these years.

_A village in the Middle East, one his unit had been ordered to defend as important to American interests in the area. The orders were clear: defend from marauding bandits and enemy tribes. Don't interfere with internal customs. Don't interfere._

_The woman had tried to flee from her abusive husband. He'd beaten her, raped her, even cut off a finger because his curry had been served too cold. She couldn't take it any more, finally tried to escape, only to be caught and dragged back for a public flogging._

_The sound echoed in his ears for days, never really leaving until weeks after his unit was ordered out of the village. Not the screams of pain, but the crack of the whip._

It came back.

Steve knew exactly what was happening. The leather cracked through the air, and the sound was the least of it. It sliced through Danny's shirt, and through his skin. Steve knew that as if he were in the room with him.

The first hint was the near absence of sound, the sudden intake of breath where the brain refused to acknowledge that agony such as this could exist.

The second—when reality hit—was the cry forced out, unbidden, filled with pain.

Third came the choked back noise of a man trying to re-conquer himself. That was the worst, the knowledge that it had happened—and the fear that it would happen again.

"Danno!" When had Steve jumped to his feet? He'd never know, and it didn't matter. What did matter was the sound of the man, his _friend_, and it was all because Steve had allowed a rookie to try to take down a hoodlum with too much power.

_Crck!_

No awed silence this time. Danny's brain knew exactly what had happened, and the scream that followed was one he had no control over.

"Stop!" Steve yelled at the phone.

A gurgled noise from Kono, and she fled the room, hand to her mouth.

_Crck!_

This scream dwindled down into nothingness. Steve clutched the phone between his hands so hard that he suddenly feared it would break.

"Well, damn," the voice said conversationally. "Who'd have thought he'd pass out so quick? Guess we beat him up a little too much. Well, better luck next time." Then, _hard_: "That was just the beginning, McGarrett. You make sure the charges are dropped, or Williams here is going to only wish he was unconscious."

The signal dropped.

Steve whirled around. "Chin!"

"Twenty minutes out, boss." Chin stared at the computer image, interpreting the dots of light superimposed on the map.

They could catch them. SWAT would get there within twenty minutes, ready for action and loaded for bear. There would be gun play, and perhaps even hostage negotiations, and Danny's fellow cops would bring him out, dead or alive. Preferably alive. Steve feared it would be dead. Hanolo's people played for keeps.

Steve ought to be there, leading the charge.

Chin correctly divined his thoughts. "You can't be everywhere, Steve."

Knuckles whitened on the rim of the table computer.

"They're Danny's friends, too, Steve," Chin reminded him. "Danny's worked with them for the past year or so. He's a _haole_, but he's a cop and he's one of them."

A small part of Steve's brain noted that Chin had said _them_. Not _us_. As though Chin didn't really consider himself part of the clan anymore.

That didn't matter, not now. Chin was part of _Danny's_ clan. Part of his family. Part of Five-O.

Steve looked around. There was another missing piece of the family, and she wasn't back yet.

Once again Chin read Steve's mind. "Lots of places I'll go for you, Steve," he said, "but the ladies' room in an official government building isn't one of them. We'll wait her out." _Just like we'll wait to hear what they find in the Kahana_. _Gonna be a long few minutes, boss._

Chin turned on the chatter on the airwaves, listening in on the pursuit, his own knuckles white.

"Turning onto the dirt road three miles north of Ha'ania. Got fresh dirt tracks."

"Roger that. Squad Quincy Two on your tail."

"Bravo Twelve, approaching from the southern end. We'll take the Leilani Trail in, on foot."

More than enough to take out Hanolo's crowd. How good were those cops in the bush? Steve wished he could be there; the SWAT teams could be good, but they wouldn't be as good as a man who'd just served his country overseas, doing missions similar to this. _Bring 'em out alive_ had been the motto. Lt. Commander Steve McGarrett had had a reputation for doing the impossible.

This was just another impossible task that needed doing, and Steve McGarrett wasn't where he needed to be.

"Place looks deserted." Hushed, over the airwaves.

"No vehicle."

"One door. It's open."

"Cover me."

Long silence, with only the snap of a twig to indicate that anyone was moving. _Lt. Commander Steve McGarrett wouldn't have snapped that twig._

_Creak_. A door being eased open, the noise joined by radio static to Steve's straining ears. His fingers tightened on the rim of the table, the computer in the center blinking with the little green lights merged into one. _Target location identified_.

"Fresh tracks out here. They probably took a hike."

"Watch yourself."

"One room." This in a normal tone of voice, filled with both relief and regret. "Empty."


	6. I Will Tear Your Soul From Your Heart

"Not real comfortable in here, y'know?" Steve leaned back against the cold cinderblock wall that comprised one side of the women's bathroom on the third floor of the Kamehameha Building. The corner of one sink made the spot just a bit too small for his tall frame. Humidity seeped in through the crack in the frosted window above his head. Steve McGarrett looked down on his youngest team member.

Kono was on the floor, arms curled around her knees, pale and sweating. Breathing through her mouth, trying not to toss her cookies one more time. Steve stared down at her. He'd seen this before, seen it in the newly enlisted types who hadn't yet seen slaughter. Not combat, no; not pictures of heroism, where gunfire was exchanged and winning meant that the other side recognized that withdrawing politely was the best possible option for the conservation of military resources. No, this was a reaction to barbarism, where the enemy sought to destroy morale from within. _Give in, or this will happen to you. Give in, or I will tear your soul from your heart and feed it to you, bite by bitter bite._

There was one, and only one, way to deal with it: set it aside. Acknowledge the evil, but never allow it to rule. Never allow it to dictate.

"Kind of hard to put Hanolo away from in here, Kono. It's Judge Hard-Ass, and he's not noted for conducting his court in the women's bath."

She wouldn't look up at him. "I can't do this, Steve."

There were several things Steve could have said, beginning with _yes, you can_ all the way through _are you crazy?_

He said none of them. He merely waited, arms folded.

"I mean, I _really_ can't do this." There was a tear in her eye to go along with the spot of blood on her bitten lip.

Wait.

"If I go through with this, if I testify at Hanolo's hearing, they'll kill Danny."

Not a sound.

"I don't _care_ that Danny wants me to do this," she told him wildly, refusing to meet his eyes. "They're going to torture him! I can't let that happen!"

Steve continued to look at her.

"They're going to kill him anyway, aren't they?" Kono finally looked up. She dashed away a tear that escaped. "No matter what I do. If I testify, they'll kill him. If I don't testify, they'll kill him because he knows who they are."

Small nod.

"They're torturing him."

Shrug of agreement.

"You're going to bring him out, right, Steve?"

Steve finally spoke. "Dead or alive." Too honest to promise something he couldn't guarantee. _If I can't bring him home alive, I can at least make sure that he has a hero's funeral._

Kono's hands still shook. "I have to do my part. I have to testify. I can't be true to myself, or to Danny, if I don't do this."

Steve reached down his hand. She took it.

He slid his arm around her waist, sensing the need for tactile comfort from the rookie. They exited the small cold room, heading for the third member of their team.

The small sign on the outside of the women's bathroom still hung off of the door: out of order.

* * *

><p>Probably only one vehicle, sitting on the dirt with mud splashed up and over the tires, but right now Danny's eyes were insisting that there were two. He squeezed his eyes tightly together, hoping that one of the vehicles would have vanished when he opened them back up again.<p>

Crap. Now there were four.

Likewise, there were multiple sets of quadruplets wandering around the makeshift camp, four Cutlers sitting on four identical boulders with four identical knives with which each was paring four identical fingernails. There were four more island boys, each with their own cell phone, looking up through the tall trees at the sky in unison for some mystical 'can you hear me now?' ritual. Danny thought about trying to count up the individuals in the crowd and dividing by four, and decided against it. _It'll only depress me_.

This wasn't going to be a permanent location, no matter how many people were milling around. It was just a stopping point for the moment, so that the group wouldn't have to refill the gas tanks of each duplicate vehicle as they moseyed around the island. It had the added advantage of nobody around to question what they were doing with a battered and bruised body in the trunk of the car.

Danny didn't remember leaving the shanty that he'd been in, but it had obviously happened. That part of his life remained blissfully unclear, although there were still parts of him that would be happy to remind him of the events should he be so foolish as to move any part of his body not intimately involved with breathing. Even expanding his rib cage to inhale was not a pleasant experience; someone was clearly holding a lighted candle to his back and scorching the skin back there inch by inch. _Must be another set of quadruplets_, he decided muzzily.

He vaguely remembered saying something to Steve McGarrett, and Steve saying something back. Probably was important, and Danny wished he could remember what the hell they were talking about.

Oh, yeah. Hanolo. Bastard at the club, wanted Danny to off Kono on the spot. Like that was going to happen.

"He awake yet?"

"I heard him moving around. You got any signal?"

"Not here. This is like the middle of nowhere, man."

"Like, this is why we're here, _man_," four of the Cutler's told one set of quadruplets irritably. "Unless you want to join Hanolo in front of a judge? Get 'im over here. Tie him up to that tree branch so he looks like he's on his feet."

Everything _hurt_ when they grabbed his arms and hoisted him up. His back screamed in scalding agony, and the sharp stabbing pain suggested that his broken ribs had failed to heal themselves in the past hour or two. Was he actually breathing while those moans were coming out of his mouth? Danny wished that unconsciousness would set back in.

He achieved something akin to stupor by the time they finished tying his arms over his head, swaying in the cool evening breeze. Okay, the soles of his feet didn't hurt. That was one thing. Two, if he counted the fact that he had two feet.

"Smile for the camera, Williams."

Camera? What camera? All he saw was four little cell phones in front of his face—

_Crkt!_

Clarity. Stark, horrid clarity.

He didn't realize that he'd screamed until he heard the sound floating in the distance. The four vehicles merged into a single jeep. The quadruplets turned back into one bastard holding a cell phone in front of Danny's face to catch every wavelet of sound.

It was all being filmed. It was being filmed on the little phone's memory, not for Steve McGarrett's benefit, but to prevent Kono from appearing at Hanolo's arraignment.

There wasn't a damn thing Danny Williams could do to stop it.

* * *

><p>The voice that came out of his cell phone was hushed. "You do realize, Steve, that I could get court-martialed for this."<p>

"Hey, I got the governor's backing for this, Kathy."

"Not my chain of command," the navy lieutenant replied nervously. "You getting this?"

"Chin?" Steve looked over at his team member, hovering over the computer screen set into the table.

"Not yet—there it is." Chin pounced on the tab one-handedly. "Coming in now. On screen." He pushed the satellite images onto the wall screen so that Steve, Kono, and Chin could all visualize the area.

The remnants of SWAT were there in the midst of the Kahana Preserve, searching for clues as to where Hanolo's crew had gone. Steve could see Sgt. Takahara's goatee going gray in the extreme clarity of the military grade imaging, watching the man and the rest of his team as they identified different aspects of the crime scene.

Takahara's voice came over more conventional channels, sounding sharp and clear across the police radio. He didn't know that the Five-O team was watching him through a purloined military channel, but he still automatically glanced upward as he talked. "Somebody was here, Steve. Signs are pretty obvious, and fresh. They high-tailed it out of here probably about twenty minutes ahead of us, maybe more."

"Can you catch them?"

Heavy, frustrated sigh. "Not likely. Most of the trail is hard. It will take us too long to track them. They'll get too far ahead too fast."

"Which direction?"

"Best guess: north. We'll take some tire track impressions from in this clearing, then the tracks fade out on the hard-packed dirt as the trail heads north."

"They leave anything behind?"

Hesitation. "Not much, Steve."

All three of the team caught it: the pause. The sense that there was something that Takahara didn't want to share. Steve exchanged a worried glance with the other two. "What's 'not much'?"

On screen, Takahara looked away, even though the man was unaware that his every move was blown up to twice life-size on the wall. "There's a couple scraps of rope with some blood on them. Forensics is taking a sample right now. We'll see if it matches any known samples."

Known samples, like blood belonging to Detective Danny Williams.

Steve spared a glance for Kono. The rookie was biting her lip again; was he going to need another talk with her, to make certain that she didn't blow it on the stand?

Imperceptible shake of the head from Chin: _she'll come through, boss. I'll make certain of that._

Steve turned back to Takahara's image automatically. "Do your best to track them. Call in whatever you get. I'm headed out your way; see what I can find."

"We'll find him, Steve." It was a promise that Takahara didn't think he would able to keep. "Takahara out."

Steve cut the connection, watching Takahara and his men round themselves up and take off in their vehicles. North, he presumed; that was what Takahara had said. He moved to his other source of intel: "Kathy?"

"Still here, Steve. You finished with me?" _Before I get caught?_

"Almost," he lied. "Pull back. Let me see the surrounding area of the Kahana."

The scene on the wall obediently zoomed out, the trees blurring into a mass of green sliced into irregular shapes by the dirt roads that passed into the wild. Steve studied the terrain, trying to guess where Hanolo's men had gone, well aware of the other two beside him trying to figure out the same thing. It could almost be anywhere, he thought with despair. The north road led to an intersection, and from there his partner could have been carried off into almost any direction. "More," he ordered the naval lieutenant. "I want to see if there are any moving vehicles in the area."

"It'll be hard to see at this height."

"Try, anyway."

The roads in the image shrank to mere threads. Kono approached the wall, trying to make the indistinct images give up their information. "Maybe here?"

"Or here." Chin too pointed. "No. This one doesn't seem to be moving."

"Unless they pulled over, to hide."

Static crackled from the intercom. "Yes, sir!" the lieutenant's voice rapped out smartly. "Pulling up the Far East theater right now!"

The image on the wall flashed, and an expanse of water dotted with three American navy vessels replaced the greenery they had just been seeing. A moment later the static dropped off along with the connection.

"Chin!"

"Got it!" Chin darted for the computer controls, pulling back the last image of the Kahana Preserve that they had.

But the image was no longer real-time, no longer feeding them data any more useful than the tourist map handed out at the ranger stations. Steve ground his teeth in frustration, wanting to bang his head against the wall where the image sat.

It was Kono who put it into words. "What do we do now?"

No choice. "You go to court, Kono," Steve ordered. "I'm going after him." He couldn't sit around here, doing nothing, waiting for another phone call to come in, riding herd on a rookie who was terrified that her testimony would get someone killed. Eventually one of those cell phone calls would be announcing the death of a very fine cop and a very fine father, and Lt. Commander Steve McGarrett would be left only wishing that he'd done something before it finished hitting the fan.

His cell pinged with an email arrival, and Steve almost ignored it. Hanolo's people had been calling, live voices; not this time. His nerves wouldn't let him not check it out, and he glanced at the small screen: _DanW_. His blood ran cold. This time they'd sent a picture—no, it was a short video across the cell phone towers. What would this one be? A ten second video of Danny Williams getting his throat cut? Steve couldn't help but look at Kono, the girl this time refusing to bite her lip. The knuckles were white, though, and Steve could see the tightly controlled tremor.

"Is it—?"

No choice. Steve thumbed it open, hit the button to start the playback—and just as quickly turned the sound to mute. There wasn't any question about what was coming out of Danny's mouth, and Steve wasn't going to let Kono hear it. "Yes," he told her, more harshly than he intended. "Just a picture. You don't need to see it."

More than a picture. It was a ten second advertisement for Hell, with Danny as the Star Tourist.

"Triangulate the signal," Steve ordered Chin. "Give me a position. A direction, at least."

"Cell towers. Got it."

Had to give Kono something to do, or she'd crack. "Kono, get me some maps of the Kahana," he instructed her. "Hard copies, something I can take with me. I need some showing the trails, and some topo maps with elevation. You can find some around here?"

"I'll get them," she promised.

He really did need them, Steve told himself, watching her scurry off in search of the prize, if he intended to go after his partner. It had been years since he'd been home, more years since he'd hiked in and out of the preserves. Rope; he'd need that. Knife: obviously. Gun? Probably not, although he'd stick it into his camo holster, the one he'd kept with him since he'd gotten home all those months ago. One man against several meant stealth was the better option but there was always the chance that Steve would need to put a few bullets in the right spot.

_Or put one through your partner's eye, to spare him any more torture_.

Steve refused to entertain that thought. This was modern America, not the Old West with a dude in a black Stetson torturing some poor slob for the fun of it. Not some far off land with the village tribes people chanting through a ritual end for the foreigner.

He opened the cell phone once more, refusing to meet Chin's eyes.

"Bad?"

"Yeah." The look on Danny's face would haunt his nightmares for the next three years if not more. If it had that effect on him, what would it be like for Grace's father? Danny would never allow his daughter to sleep over, not if it meant exposing her to leftover screams in the night. Steve steeled himself; it was time to get his partner _out_ of this mess. "I'm going after him, Chin."

Chin flexed his arm, the one in the sling, a thoughtful look on his face.

Steve correctly interpreted that look. "Not a chance, Chin. The way I intend to go in, you'd only slow me down. Besides, I need you to ride herd on Kono."

Steve's team member almost objected, then sighed, acknowledging the rightness of Steve's decision. "I don't like the idea of you going in alone. No back up." It was a last gasp of protest.

Steve didn't shrug, didn't disagree. "I don't much like it, either. But I've trained for this; you haven't. Not like this. And there isn't one inch of the Kahana that I haven't hiked through."

"Ten years ago," Chin reminded him, and sighed again. "Trade cells with me," he told his boss, handing his own over to Steve. "Any call that comes in, I'll trace it and call you with a location."


	7. OutThink the Opposition

Steve McGarrett pocketed the keys to his car, depositing the vehicle in the small parking area set aside for hikers on the edge of the Kahana Preserve. A back pack was on the seat next to him, and he swung it over his shoulders. There was more than just rope in there; Steve feared that he'd need not just first aid but a heavy dose of emergency medicine. The video that he'd gotten that had led him to this spot was not reassuring. He put Chin's borrowed cell into his pocket after making certain that the tech toy was on vibrate. That would be all that he'd need, for the thing to ring in Chin's favorite song smidgen for all to hear as Steve was trying to decide how best to take down a nest of thugs with a half dead hostage.

Three miles along the Pa'utani Trail, that's what Chin had told him. Steve had to admit, Chin had done a fine job of narrowing down the location of the last call from Hanolo's men, the one where they'd sent that little snippet of recorded agony. Chin had transferred the video onto the computer, he'd said, and backed it up some place else so that it couldn't get 'lost' like the tape from Hanolo's bar.

Steve refused to let the lush beauty of the preserves lull him into the sense of enjoyment that he had always had when he'd hiked around here. He broke into a trot, a fast-paced easy gait that covered the miles swiftly, feeling his wind settle into the rhythm with his heart. He'd have to do this more often, he promised himself, once he'd gotten things back the way they were supposed to be.

_Those things included listening to one slightly annoying mainlander in the passenger seat of his car, telling Steve that he was an adrenaline junkie who knew nothing about police work…_

There—tracks. Fresh ones, too, not more than two hours old, and surrounded by footprints that told him that at least one man had exited his vehicle, circled around, and then returned. Steve took a moment to let his ears reassure him that he was alone, that Hanolo's men had moved on from this spot, then he pried open Chin's cell. "Chin?"

"You find him?"

"No." Steve moved on. "Check my position. This where the video was transmitted from?"

"Just a minute."

It was more than a minute; it took nearly three. Steve waited impatiently.

"Exact position, Steve, far as I can tell. Give or take a few yards."

Steve frowned. That didn't make sense. He scanned the area; there were trees lining the dirt road that was barely large enough for a jeep to slide through with more bushes threatening to block the path altogether. Come to think about it, the footprints looked as though they represented a single shoe size. Now, unless each one of Hanolo's thugs wore the same size shoe… "Chin, can you send me a copy of the video?"

"Yes." Chin's tone darkened; he too had looked at the ten second film, frame by frame, trying to dig out additional clues. Steve could tell simply by the anger in his team member's voice. "You got something?"

"Maybe. Send it over."

He didn't need sound for this, and Steve almost guiltily muted the screams that accompanied the pictures. _As if listening to them over and over would make the situation any better? I can't afford the distraction. _Danny_ can't afford for me to be distracted._ Instead, Steve focused on the details surrounding his partner, looked at the bushes and the clearing where the man had been located.

Clear. There were several feet of open ground in every direction, more than enough room for the _haole_ bastard to swing a whip and have it land on a man's back already shredded by previous torture. Steve scrutinized the clearing where he himself stood, estimating the distance—and he had the answer.

The video had been transmitted from here, but not _filmed_ here. No, Hanolo's men had done their dastardly work in another spot, then sent one of their own to transmit the evidence of their work from this spot, just to throw off the pursuit.

Steve refused to grind his teeth. The ploy had worked. Takahara and his men weren't making progress, and now Steve himself had wasted precious minutes tracking down a spot where Danny Williams had never been. He glanced at his watch; he still had time. There was still another half hour before Kono had to be in court, and knowing that Danny Williams was safe would be a good way to keep her from faltering on the stand while the judge was deciding if Hanolo needed to stay behind bars to wait for a trial. He could do this.

Okay; what next? Steve McGarrett had spent a great many hours here hiking in his adolescence, and it was time to put that experience to work. There were only just so many places in the preserve where a man's screams would go unheard. He pulled the maps from his pack and spread them on the ground in front of him.

He began to out-think the opposition.

* * *

><p>Kono ground her teeth. It wasn't <em>fair!<em> Here she was, stuck inside where it was safe. Kono didn't want to be _safe_; she wanted to be out in the Kahana Preserves, tracking the bastards that had taken her team mate. Instead, here she was, following orders, hunting down whoever had wiped the tape from last night's bust.

Kono snatched up the file that recorded the chain of custody of the taped sting, wondering which name on the file was dirty. One of them had to be; that was the only way that Chin's tape could have gotten wiped. Chin had recorded the entire conversation that had taken place inside the Night's Pleasure and now that recording was gone.

Here it was, the Evidence Record, with Chin's name on the top, Chin's signature in slender black ink. Her cousin's signature _fit_ him, Kono decided: lean and spare, almost like a glyph on a piece of Oriental art. He had turned the tape over to Hugo Takahara, the same man who was leading the SWAT team in search of Danny Williams. Takahara had backed them up at the bar, arriving just in time to take charge of the arrestees and clean up the mess. Takahara had had custody of the tape until they all arrived at Headquarters, then he'd turned it over to an Evidence clerk by the name of Jones.

Ebony Jones; that was a name that Kono didn't know. Not that it was any surprise—Kono didn't know a lot of the cops on the force, only the ones that she'd grown up with. Even some of those cops had drifted away after Chin had been forced out. Nobody wanted to be too close to a 'dirty' cop.

Kono could barely make out the signature, or the one beneath it. Jones had then turned the tape over to Ralph Waldo, AKA 'Emerson'. Kono had never realized the significance of the man's nickname until she'd finished her obligatory English course in college. She'd read Emerson in high school, of course, but she'd never made the connection until one night when she'd been browsing through the stacks of books in the university library and stumbled across a tome with the author's name on it. Then she'd felt foolish for not thinking of it sooner.

Emerson: not a chance. The man was old enough to be her grandfather, had worked for the police department in the Evidence Room for more years than she'd lived. No one in the department would ever suspect him of anything more heinous than lying about his health when everyone could see that he was crippled over with arthritis. "Never felt better!" he'd always declare whenever anyone asked, and even the department medics hadn't yet persuaded him to retire.

The final signature was almost illegible, and Kono squinted at the letters, trying to make them come clear. It started with an 'N'—Neil? Maybe Nathan?—and the last name looked like 'Detroit'. Was there someone named after a town? Kono didn't know any cop by that name, and decided that it was likely some newbie from the D.A.'s office.

Well, she had her list of suspects, and some she could cross off right away. Chin was one, and Emerson was another. Takahara wasn't likely, but Ebony Jones and this 'N. Detroit' would be her first picks. Anyone of them could have surreptitiously wiped the tape clean. All it would take would be a heavy duty magnet in the vicinity of the tape, and the State's Evidence would be History.

Time for some computer searching into a couple of backgrounds.

* * *

><p>They weren't paying attention to him. That worked in Danny Williams's favor.<p>

He took stock of his surroundings: he was slumped in the back seat of a jeep, with one guy driving and Cutler, the _haole_ mainlander, in the other front seat. There was a third goon on the seat beside Danny, a gun sitting lazily in his lap. Danny allowed his eyes to slit open—not that it was any trouble to keep them closed, since they were all but swollen shut—and saw that there were three other bastards hanging onto the frame of the jeep, hitching a lift as the vehicle grumpily meandered through a path barely large enough to accommodate its size.

Escape wasn't going to be a reality, not in this lifetime. Run away from them? Hah; they wouldn't even need to put a bullet into his back. He'd face plant before they even had a chance to notice that he had exited the vehicle, then they'd haul his ass back in once they finished laughing.

Danny forced his muddled thoughts to focus on what was going on. Cutler, Hanolo's main man, was determined to extract his boss through the use of a hostage, namely Danny himself. With Danny in Cutler's clutches, they'd be pushing for Kono to crack on the stand. Maybe she wouldn't even make it to the stand. Danny hadn't missed all the living Technicolor photos that they'd been taking of him, suitable for framing in a gallery of horrors. There wasn't one doubt in his mind that those pictures were getting shoved under her nose, trying to frighten her into backing away. Hell, they were enough to make Danny himself back away.

Would Kono crack? Danny didn't want to think so, but the girl was a rookie. She hadn't had time to develop the tough skin that a cop needed. Sure, she was way better than most, however underneath there was still a little girl with as much innocence as his daughter Grace. Would she crack? Steve McGarrett would do his best not to let her, though Danny wasn't about to say that it would be enough. Hell, _he'd_ be thinking twice if the tables were turned.

Danny could tip the scales in favor of justice. Without a hostage, there would be no leverage. Kono wouldn't be motivated by fear, but she'd be plenty pissed and looking for revenge. Hanolo's ass would be grass and ready for planting behind bars.

There it was, coming up just around the bend. The edge of the path dipped off onto a cliff that plunged straight down for further than Danny could see from his slumped position. Danny held himself still, didn't give the slightest clue that he was awake, let alone coherent enough to think.

Coherent? Hah. What kind of half-assed idea had he come up with? Danny was always accusing Steve McGarrett of doing stupid things, and this idea of Danny's was going to outdo them all.

The jeep rumbled around the curve, the driver slowing to make sure that the outer wheels didn't slip over the edge.

Danny grabbed the gun in the lap of the man beside him. The man yelled and snatched at the weapon; Danny didn't care.

He pulled the trigger, hastily aiming the barrel in the general direction of the driver.

_Bang!_

The driver slumped over, taking the steering wheel with him. The jeep slid over the cliff edge and tilted crazily, dumping the hangers-on over the side. Cutler yelled, and Danny couldn't make out the words.

Not that it mattered. The jeep rolled over the side of the road and tumbled downward, taking all of Hanolo's men and Danny with it.

_Couple of good things here, Steve. You're never again gonna have to listen to me lecture you about how police work ought to get done. I'm not gonna have to live through any more of Cutler's torture, and as soon as you find my body, you can tell Kono to sing her little heart out. You make sure that Hanolo stays put; you hear me?_


	8. Do Feral Hogs Jump?

He could be totally off base with this. Steve McGarrett could be on the complete opposite side of the Kahana Preserves from Danny Williams, could be too far away from the man to hear him being tortured to death as a command performance for Kono.

Somehow he didn't think so. He knew this territory, had gone through it over and over again as a kid. He knew where the kids tended to hang, knew where the drug deals went down, even knew the spots where college kids took their high school jail bait. There wasn't one inch of the preserves that he hadn't traipsed through.

That, however, was more than ten years ago and a lot could have happened in ten long years. It was enough time for a few groves of trees to get themselves blown over by typhoons, and another grove to grow into a spot where a grove had never been before. Paths could have been altered, and so could some of the streams that offered moisture to the tropical flora all around him.

It wasn't all that different. Steve's gut was shrieking 'this is it! This is it!' at him and urging his feet to greater speed.

He trotted down the trail, letting his ears do the work of searching for clues.

* * *

><p>Kono stared at the computer read out. It had been just as easy to input all the five names she'd gathered as one, and she did so more so that she could say with absolute honesty that she was being thorough rather than any expectation that certain names would be suspect.<p>

Emerson's popped up first, and she tabbed the keys that would open the file, frowning. First usually meant that the computer had found something.

Yeah. It did. Emerson's account at the National Hawaiian Bank showed three deposits of twenty thousand dollars each. Total: sixty thousand dollars, all in the past four days. What was going on?

Another file: Jones. It also showed large sums of money getting transferred within the account, only an hour ago.

Last: Detroit. Nothing. There was nothing, as if the man didn't exist, and that in itself was suspicious.

Three suspects. Three suspects, and only an hour available for investigation before she needed to stand up in front of a judge to say, "Peter Hanolo told Detective Danny Williams to kill me." One hour and two minutes until some slimeball of an attorney, representing Hanolo, would respond, "Your Honor, my client never said that."

Hanolo would walk. And Danny Williams would be dead.

* * *

><p><em>Hey! I'm alive!<em>

'Alive', however, was a somewhat slippery definition. Maybe 'breathing' would be a better description because 'alive' suggested more of an ability to interact with the world and that was definitely something that Danny Williams was not up to.

He looked at his surroundings and reconsidered his last thought. Maybe he wasn't up to it, but he'd better get himself up and running if he wanted to remain in one piece. There were a couple of bodies lying twisted in the wreckage of the jeep, and by the looks of them, they weren't going to be a threat to anyone ever again. People with their necks in that particular angle tended not to live very long. There were three more, though, that had gotten themselves tossed off the falling jeep before major damage could be done. They weren't moving very fast, but their rib cages were expanding and contracting and one of them was starting to lift himself up on one unsteady hand. Of Cutler there was no sign.

Three of them. One of him, and the good thing about his condition was that his feet were intact. His feet wouldn't work very _fast_, but 'slow' was better than 'stick around and die'. Danny hauled himself up into something resembling an upright position and shuffled off into the brush.

* * *

><p>There was no particular reason why Steve should follow up on that indistinct crash, but his feet refused to take any other path. There could be a hundred different explanations for the bang that echoed distantly, including a head-on collision from a couple of beach-going cars aiming for the same spot on the Kamehameha Highway. There was a fork in the path, one aiming south and one headed east, and he chose the eastern route toward the interior of the preserves—and the noise.<p>

His ears told him a lot about where he was: the song birds scolding him from above, the bees humming as they went about their business of pollinating the islands. There were the grunts from a group of feral hogs, and Steve recognized the tunnels in the brush made by the imported menace that were rapidly growing in numbers and in nuisance value. He ignored most of the noise as background, knowing that if his partner and Hanolo's men were anywhere close, he wouldn't be hearing so much from the fauna. It meant that he needed to hustle.

Steve moved on, his gait a fast trot, his eyes scanning the brush for signs of recent activity. Above all, he listened.

* * *

><p>Chin looked at the time stamp in the lower right corner of the computer screen. It was coming perilously close to the time when Kono would need to leave for the courthouse. No matter what answers they didn't have, that could not be missed.<p>

The afternoon sun was trying to enter the darkened interior of Hawaii Five-O central command and failing, its progress impeded by the shaded windows. Nevertheless, Chin could tell even before he'd looked at computer screen that it was getting late.

"You're making progress, right?" Kono's voice showed her nerves.

"Yes," he lied, then did a double-take: the computer had just turned his lie into a truth. The results on Emerson had popped in as he was talking. Hurriedly, Chin opened up the document.

He breathed a sigh of relief; the large transfers of money that had occurred over the past few days were all related to investments that Emerson was putting away for retirement, and Chin had just traced them back to the original instruments. All legal, all intelligent economic moves for a man approaching retirement, and all leading to the welcome conclusion that Ralph 'Emerson' Waldo was not the person who had surreptitiously wiped the tape clean of Hanolo's crime. "Emerson's clean," he reported. "His stuff checks out. One down."

"Two to go." Kono refused to be reassured. "I'm pulling in the records on Ebony Jones, and there isn't very much. Nothing on those big transactions."

Chin accepted that. "How about that Detroit guy?"

"Absolutely nothing. I haven't even been able to locate a checking account. Doesn't do direct deposit. He probably lives paycheck to paycheck, spending it as soon as it hits his pocket."

Chin began to hit a sequence of buttons. Staying here was not an option; Kono couldn't be late for Hanolo's hearing. Without her testimony, the D.A. had nothing, and Hanolo would walk. It wouldn't matter if they could prove that either Jones or the Detroit guy had wiped the tape, and it wouldn't matter even if they could pull Danny Williams out of the preserves afterward because Hanolo would have had his hearing and would have beaten the system. If Kono spoke and gave witness, they had a fifty-fifty chance of persuading the judge to hold Hanolo over for trial. Conviction would be a matter for another day, but they'd deal with that later. After they got Danny back.

_By then, it could be a trial for murder_.

Chin refused to consider that possibility. A few more keystrokes, and he'd be ready to go.

Kono watched him. "What are you doing?"

"We've still got two suspects who could have wiped the tape," Chin answered her, "and this computer is our best bet to figure out which one it is." He indicated the small and slender computer tablet beside him. "I'm going to try to remote in, from the court room. I'll be working the computer through this while we wait for your testimony, tracking down those money trails." He looked up. "You can do this, cuz?"

Kono looked away.

Chin made it a statement this time. "You can do this, cuz."

"Yeah." It could have sounded more positive. "Chin…"

"Yeah. I know." Chin wrapped up his tablet. "Let's go."

* * *

><p>So how many times was this that he'd fallen? Good thing the ground was soft. Danny Williams would have had his nose broken several times over.<p>

Oh, wait. It already was broken, courtesy of Cutler's fist. Or maybe it was one of the other guys? Not that it made much difference. Still hurt like hell.

So where the hell was he? By the looks of it, one of the various preserves on the Island. Hadn't a clue which one, just that it was pretty big. Or maybe it just seemed that way, because he hadn't come across any roads since he'd caused Cutler's jeep to fall off the cliff, taking Cutler and all of Hanolo's men with it. Of course, it took one of Steve McGarrett's men with it, too, but that was kind of the point.

He wasn't dead, yet. Mixed blessing: Danny Williams was alive—that was the good part—but still in this tropical, palm tree-ridden, coconut-soaked version of a national park with a minimum of three thugs on his tail like white on rice.

Danny grabbed a slender tree, hoisting himself back onto his feet, wondering just how many times he could fall before the rest of him decided that enough was enough and getting up one more time was out of the question. Not this time; his feet were once again underneath him, his head high above the ground and swaying.

Maybe he'd lost the bastards? He really didn't know. He didn't see how; he'd left a trail a mile wide that even a seven year old cub scout from the city could follow.

What was that noise? Danny picked up his head, certain that the grunting sounds hadn't come from himself.

_Crap_. There they were, a bunch of feral hogs. Was 'bunch' the right term, or should it be 'herd' like a bunch of cows? Maybe some other term? Steve McGarrett would know, just like he seemed to know everything else about this pile of volcanic ash in the middle of the Pacific. Big mothers, too; every one of the hogs looked to out-weigh Danny himself. _And_ they had piglets with them. Hoglets. Babies. Whatever—it was an invitation for Mama Hog to come over and stomp Hawaii Five-O's token _haole_ into even more of a pile of bloody rags than Hanolo's people did.

"It's okay. I'm not really here." Danny's mouth decided to work. The words didn't sound particularly clear, but that wasn't something he had control over. "Just backing away, here. Not intruding on anything."

The largest boar didn't seemed convinced. He, she, or it lowered its head menacingly. It pawed the ground.

"Shit." Running wasn't going to help. That thing could out-run him even if all of his body parts were in good operating condition. That left climbing a tree.

Could feral hogs jump? Danny had a funny feeling that he was about to find out.

* * *

><p>The engine to the jeep was still warm, suggesting that the crash had occurred not too long ago. There were two bodies, too, both dead. Steve didn't need to feel for a pulse to verify that, not with the twisted angle to each neck, but he did anyway, just so he could put it into his later report. The bodies were likewise warm, adding to the evidence that the crash had been recent.<p>

Steve took a moment to peer into the interior of the ruined vehicle. No bodies were left inside. If this had been a normal accident scene, Steve would have assumed that the two dead bodies outside had failed to use normal safety precautions such as seatbelts, and had gotten tossed out of the jeep when it went over the cliff edge above.

Not this time. There was a dark stain in the back seat, and a coil of rope looped around one of the seat struts with more of the dark stain. Steve feared he knew what that stain was from: blood.

* * *

><p>"Hang on a minute." Chin ignored Kono's frantic hiss in his ear. "Yeah. Got it. Ebony Jones is clean."<p>

"She is?" Kono tried to lean over to see the data for herself on Chin's small tablet. "Damn. I was so sure…"

"Large sums of money, all paid to the University of Hawaii. Damn," Chin breathed, "does it really cost that much to go to school? Even part time?"

"You don't want to know what my loans are like, cuz," Kono assured him bitterly. "Okay, she's clean. Damn," she repeated, looking around their surroundings as if the answer was _there_ if only she was smart enough to recognize it.

It wasn't, Chin reflected bitterly, not if the mole was any kind of intelligent. No, whoever had wiped the tape clean was probably long gone by now, would have packed up his or her belongings and fled right after doing the deed. There wasn't a snowball's chance in Mt. Kilauea's fiery lava that the perpetrator was here in this courthouse. Chin, too, allowed his eyes to scurry over the small crowd in the courtroom gallery. There were a few reporters toward the back, notebooks in hand. There was not one but two artists, one in each corner, drawing sketches of the defendant and his expensive lawyer, hoping to sell the pictures to the local news outlet. Peter Hanolo wasn't as big as a state official going down, but he was big enough to create a local stir.

Three big mothers, all in the back row, all sitting with their arms crossed over muscled chests. That was not good; they were likely more of Hanolo's men, come to see that their boss walked out of the courtroom with an apology from the State of Hawaii. The three wouldn't be armed—this was, after all, a courthouse with all kinds of electronic monitors to prevent weapons from entering—but from the size of them, Chin didn't want this proceeding to devolve into a fistfight.

Neither did the bailiff, a tall and lanky dude with a shaved head who looked like he could normally control any problems for His Honor. _Normally_; that was the key word. The three bozos in back looked to be the bailiff's size and then some. Chin was pleased to see the bailiff on the wall phone to the side of the courtroom, speaking swiftly into the mouthpiece. Chin could imagine what was being said:

"_Hey, Joe, you want to send down a couple more guys? I may have a Situation."_

"_Yeah? That's what you said the last time, Mikey."_

"_Right, and nothing happened because you listened to me. You gonna listen now? I got Mr. Big Shot Hanolo for a hearing."_

_Sigh. "You got it, Mikey. I'll send down Victor and Tiny as soon as they finish with Judge Kamealoha."_

"_Tell 'em to hurry it up. We're about to start."_

The bailiff turned away from the phone in time to intone, "All rise for the Honorable Judge Hardaway."

Chin grabbed his tablet awkwardly, struggling to stand in the narrow seat—and watched as a stray finger disconnected the computer link to the massive computer in Five-O Headquarters.

Damn…

* * *

><p>Okay, so jumping wasn't one of the feral hog's best talents. That worked in Danny's favor, currently clutching the thick branch of a tree that wasn't nearly tall enough for his comfort. Hogs couldn't jump, and couldn't leap high enough to gouge out a chunk of flesh from Danny's leg with those ferocious tusks. The hog tried, and failed. The rest of its herd stood back and cheered it on, grunting and snorting.<p>

Unfortunately, the hog compensated for its lack of leaping talent by demonstrating an exceptional capability at pushing the tree over, pulling the roots out of the ground. The tree tilted. Danny hung on desperately, wondering what he should do. Jump? They'd run him down in no time flat. Leap to another nearby tree? Not in this life time; the nearest tree larger than a sapling was three yards away. Not reachable even if he was intact.

Vicious, ugly thing. Short and chunky. Bristly hair running thinly over its back with spikes that looked sharp enough to slice through roasted ham.

Ram the tree; the trunk tilted. Danny yelled, the noise shocked out of him. Did it really matter if Cutler and his thugs found him? He was a dead man either way.


	9. Past Time To Go

Seconds counted. Steve no longer needed the obvious signs in the brush that someone had staggered through this path. Sound sufficed: the frenzied grunting of the feral hogs that were overrunning the preserves, the squeals that told of something—or some _one_—who had angered a sow and her litter. Steve had no doubt of who that someone was.

No time. Steve burst into the clearing.

The feral hog had her attention on rooting up a sturdy tree. A quick glance—yes, that was Steve's partner, clinging for dear life to a branch just barely above the reach of a couple of tusks. One more yank from the hog, and tree and man would be lying on the ground. In the background were four nearly grown youngsters, just waiting for the word from Mom to come help gore the intruder.

Steve would have preferred to do things quietly. He would have preferred to alert the hogs to his presence and have them skitter off into the bush to annoy some other hapless hiker.

Life was full of disappointments.

He snatched up a rock as big as his hand, and threw. He followed that up by grabbing a long piece of wood and brandishing it over his head to make himself look larger to the animal. Then, yelling, he charged.

Feral hogs were not known for stupidity. Large human, charging, angry? She could think of better places to be. With a snort, she left off uprooting the tree and scuttled through the reed tunnels, her litter squealing and grunting behind her.

"Danny!" Steve rushed forward. The tree had been so far pushed over that his partner was easy to reach. Steve seized the most convenient part of the man—his belt—and tried to ease him down.

Not happening. Danny's eyes were wide open with fear—but not seeing anything.

"Danny!" Steve urged. "Danny, snap out of it!"

Danny blinked. "Steve? What are you doing…?"

His tenuous grasp on the tree branch loosened, and he began to fall.

Steve shoved one hand under his partner's arm, still keeping hold of his belt, and carefully lowered him to the ground.

The breath eased out of his partner along with all of his tension; Danny was done. There was nothing left in the man, nothing to fight with.

Not good. The noise would surely attract Hanolo's men, of that Steve was certain. He'd seen trail signs a mile away, had seen that they'd taken the wrong path in searching for their target. There were four of them, according to the tracks, one limping.

Danny, though, was a mess. Steve felt his gut clench as the extent of his partner's injuries made itself known. There was dried blood all over Danny's face, and that was just the obvious piece. The shredded shirt that he wore, the same collared business shirt that he'd worn for the sting operation, covered a multitude of atrocities.

No time for that. If they didn't move quickly, Hanolo's people would be on them, and then Five-O would have two hostages to pull out. In fact, Steve's keen sense of hearing could already echo-locate the enemy possibly as little as half a mile away.

"We have to get out of here," Steve told the man on the ground.

"Right." Pause. "This means I have to stand up, right?"

"That's the general idea."

Another pause. "Am I standing yet?"

"No."

"I didn't think so." Another pause. "Any chance you can go without me?"

"No." Enough of this. Steve hooked both hands under this partner's arms, lifting him bodily to his feet.

Danny clung to his partner for entirely too long, trying to coordinate his breathing with the simple act of standing. "I can do this," he said, more to convince himself than Steve.

"You can do this," Steve agreed. "You think you can stand without me holding you up?"

Weak snort. "Just try me." Danny let go, and tried a step.

Mistake. His knee gave out; Steve caught him before they lost what little progress they had made. "Hey!"

Breathing; that was Danny's primary goal at the moment. Air passing in and out of his mouth, because the nose had too much blood inside to do the job. Fingers trembling as they used Steve's own arms as a prop to remain upright.

"You can do this," Steve soothed, unable to keep the doubt out of his voice.

"Yeah." The shuddering passed. Danny took a deep breath. "Let's get out of here."

He took another step. This time his knees held.

It was past time to go.

* * *

><p>"Officer Kalakaua." The defense attorney strutted in front of the witness stand, disbelief oozing out of every pore. "Officer Kalakaua," he repeated. "How long have you been with the police?"<p>

Kono gritted her teeth. "Six months."

"Ah. Six months," he repeated. "Six months."

_How often are you going to say it, slime mold?_

"Not very long," he mused. "Not very long at all. Are you enjoying your work, Officer?"

Kono couldn't help herself. "Not at the moment," she snapped back, then bit her tongue. _Can't let him get to me, not with Hanolo glaring at me from the defendant's chair_.

Too late. The attorney pounced. "I suppose you much more enjoy the undercover operations, Officer Kalakaua. The night life. The dancing. Tell me: how many drinks did you consume last night while attempting to coerce Mr. Hanolo into performing illegal acts?"

"Objection, Your Honor. Officer Kalakaua is not on trial," the prosecutor called out. "This isn't even a trial; it's a hearing on the charges."

Judge Hardaway held up his hand. "Officer Kalakaua's condition during the operation is relevant, counselor," he ruled. "Answer the question, officer."

If she gritted her teeth any more, she'd be seeing her dentist for dentures. Kono deliberately relaxed her jaw. "Not more than two," she said.

"Two," the defense attorney repeated, raising his eyebrows. "Which was it, officer? One, or two? Perhaps three or four?"

"I said less than two." Kono refused to let her knuckles whiten on the arms of the chair.

"Are you sure?"

"Let's not drag this out, Mr. Bronstein," Judge Hardaway admonished him. "As Mr. Wing pointed out, this is merely a hearing. Save your histrionics for the trial."

Bronstein accepted the admonition. "Your Honor, let's save the Court and the State of Hawaii time and money. We have here a misunderstanding. The unfortunate victim crawled into Mr. Hanolo's establishment and handed the knife to my client before he expired. Ms. Kalakaua—"

"_Officer_ Kalakaua," the prosecutor interjected.

"—walked in after the event, which is why she didn't see any murder occur. As for the rest?" Bronstein spread his hands. "We only have Ms. Kalakaua's word for that."

"There are witnesses—" Wing rose from his chair.

"Where?" Bronstein asked. "I have several of Mr. Hanolo's colleagues, all attesting to his innocence. Where's Detective Williams to say otherwise? Where is the tape that supposedly exists? What proof is there that Ms. Kalakaua isn't making all of this up out of some misguided perception that Mr. Hanolo isn't entitled to the same rights as the rest of us?"

"Detective Williams was kidnapped from his apartment last night—"

"Really? Or is that what Five-O would _like_ us to think?" Bronstein countered. He turned to the bench. "Your Honor, the unit called Five-O has already, in its short term of existence, garnered a reputation for working outside of normal legal and police procedure. Might this not be another example of skirting the edge of legality? Are they buying time, trying to concoct a tape recording of events that never happened, merely in attempt to frame my client? Your Honor, that tape was _supposedly_ in police custody for the entire time, yet it has vanished. The State's only witness is a woman who, by her own admission, was not only under the influence of alcohol, but a rookie cop as well. The other witness has declined to appear before the Court, and I can produce a mountain of evidence in the form of unsubstantiated complaints against my client that the police are harassing Mr. Hanolo. Your Honor, I move for dismissal on the grounds of insufficient evidence."

Judge Hardaway looked at the prosecutor. "Mr. Wing?"

Wing wasn't happy. "Your Honor, the tape was erased, and we are investigating how that happened. Detective Williams was kidnapped from his apartment."

Hardaway wasn't happy. "One incident I might buy, Mr. Wing, but two?" He sighed, coming to a decision that he didn't like. He looked at his watch, a quietly expensive model that even told the time to the closest milli-second. "You have until four o'clock, Mr. Wing, to produce additional evidence as to why the defendant should be held over for trial. If you cannot produce either the tape, Detective Williams, or some other piece of evidence, I will have no choice but to allow Mr. Bronstein's move for dismissal."

* * *

><p>The distance between the two Five-O men and their pursuers was steadily closing. Steve estimated that Hanolo's people had closed the gap to less than a quarter mile, making far better time over the rough land than their victim.<p>

Not that Danny was giving in. No, his partner was still putting one foot in front of the other, grabbing onto trees and bushes and whatever else was handy to keep himself upright and moving.

The trouble was, those steps were getting shorter and slower by the minute. The only thing that was growing in speed were the gasps for breath that almost, but not quite, qualified as groans. Steve wasn't about to give himself odds that he wouldn't end up with the man over his shoulder, carrying him out of the bush.

That wasn't likely to do them any good. Steve's own car was over a mile away. At the speed they were going, Hanolo's men would be on them just before they reached it; not good enough. With four pursuers, Steve wouldn't be able to defend them.

That didn't mean that it was hopeless. Steve pulled out his cell phone, hoping that he was close enough to a tower for the call to go through. Two bars; maybe?

Time to go to ground. Steve spotted a hog's nest that looked abandoned. The tracks were old, with no sign of recent scat. It would be safe, or least safer than continuing toward his car.

Danny looked at the leafy den dubiously. "You do realize that once I'm down, I'm not getting back up for the next year?"

Steve chuckled. If Danny's sense of humor was intact, then there was hope. "You wish. Hey—" and he grabbed for his partner, catching him under the arms before he could fall. "Hey, don't give up on me now."

"Sure." Danny's voice had turned to a whisper, and he hung limply in Steve's grasp.

Steve wrestled him gently onto the ground inside the nest, pulling in some additional reeds for bedding. Next, he pulled the pack off of his back, digging inside for the canteen of warm but potable water.

Danny watched him with dull eyes. "You should get out of here."

"We have time for this." Steve moistened a cloth with some of the water to try to remove some of the crusted blood.

That woke his partner up. "Ow," Danny complained. "Take it easy."

"I _am_ taking it easy. You're a mess, bro." Yeah, there was a lot of damage under the blood but nothing that wouldn't heal in time—assuming that there would be time. _Big assumption, McGarrett. Danny's right. You need to get your ass moving._ Probing under the man's shirt was even worse: Danny hissed when Steve felt along the ribcage. Steve could feel the bones grating, and winced in sympathy.

"I'm thirsty," Danny told him irritably. "Let's use some of that water for what it was meant for: drinking."

"You drink anything now, it'll come right back up."

"Hah," Danny scoffed, although the sound had almost nothing of its usual vigor. "Remember the kinds of foods I grew up eating. I can keep anything down."

"Your funeral." Steve poured out less than a tablespoon of the liquid, holding Danny's head up so that he could swallow.

Mistake, and Steve had told him so. The only positive was that a lot of blood came out along with it.

"Feel better?" Steve asked dryly.

Danny's response was unprintable.

"I'm going to assume that you're saying yes." Steve didn't wait for an answer. Instead, he used some additional branches to make the spot unnoticeable. "You lie here and be quiet. You got me? Quiet. Not a word, not anything."

"And where will you be, Superman? Flying back with your cape to get some help?"

"You're delirious, Danno," Steve told him. "Superman never needed help. He was bullet-proof, remember?"

Danny caught Steve by the arm. "Just remember that you're not, okay?" He let his arm fall away heavily, unable to summon the strength to continue.

Not good. Steve had seen bodies in worse condition, but most of them had been corpses. _Not this one. This one has a little girl waiting for her daddy_.

Time to go. Steve placed the canteen of water next to his partner, swinging the pack up over his shoulders once more. "Don't touch that for a bit," he cautioned Danny. "You can't afford to make any noise as they're passing by. I'm going to draw them off, then I'll come back for you. Maybe I'll even find Takahara and his boys, bring 'em back with me."

That elicited the ghost of a smile from his partner. "You do that," Danny agreed, and closed his eyes.

* * *

><p>"What do we do now?" Kono wanted to know.<p>

She kept her voice down. The three large men from the courtroom had followed them outside and stood in a small group, watching the Five-O detectives.

"Chill, cuz." Chin himself felt less than cool. "They're just trying to make us nervous."

"It's working. One of them's on his cell." _Is he telling someone to kill Danny? Have I just killed him, with my testimony?_

"They're not going to kill him until they're certain that he's more use to them dead," Chin told her, reading her thoughts easily.

"Yeah? And what good is he alive to them right now?" Kono stared back at the men who were glaring balefully at them.

"They wouldn't be hanging out here if they were planning on killing Danny," Chin said with more assurance than he was feeling. "They'd be hustling out of town and into a rat hole somewhere to avoid a conspiracy to commit murder rap. There must be something else."

"Like what?"

"Like what we're doing right now." Chin's fingers danced over his tablet, re-establishing the link between it and the main computer back in Five-O Headquarters. "We've still got this Detroit guy to check out. Look, the Evidence Room is about two minutes from here and we've got time before Judge Hard-Ass reconvenes his court. Go and investigate; I'll stay here and see what the computer database can tell us. Got it?"

"Yeah," Kono started to say when Steve's cell phone, shoved into Chin's pocket, warbled at them.

Chin had it out in a flash. He put it onto speaker so that Kono could listen in, moving further away from Hanolo's men down the hall. "Steve?"

"I've got him."

There wasn't anything more important than that. Steve had Danny, and that meant that the man was alive. Chin could see the tension relax out of Kono's shoulders. He regretted it; Hanolo's men, watching them closely, would probably realize what the story was.

Not enough. "Where are you?" Chin kept his voice down.

"Still in the middle of the preserve. Get hold of Takahara and tell him to haul ass to our location. I want back up."

"You got it." Chin motioned to Kono, telling her to call Takahara _fast_. "You got a location?"

"Tell him to look for my car; it's on the north edge, about a mile or two in. Tell him to be careful. There are more of Hanolo's men here, and they're going to be waiting for us. They'll probably set up some sort of ambush around my car."

"Got it."

"Steve." Kono pushed back in. "Takahara says he's at least half an hour from your location."

"Okay. Tell him that I intend to hunker down and wait for him to mosey over."

"You can't," Chin said grimly. "Hanolo's hearing is in recess."

"Kono testified?"

"For as much good as it did," Kono replied bitterly. "I blew it, Steve. I let that slime attorney rattle me."

Chin cut in. "No, you didn't, Kono. It's your word against his, and they came up with a plausible explanation. It's a stalemate, Steve. Judge Hardaway doesn't know which way to turn. Either we come up with more evidence—meaning Danny or something about the tape—or he won't hold Hanolo."

"What about the tape?"

"Nothing so far. We're still looking for a trail that leads us to the last suspect."

"How long do we have?"

Chin looked at the time stamp in the lower corner of the tablet he was holding. There was another flashing bar, indicating that more data had arrived; none too soon for his taste. "Under an hour."

"Then I need to get moving. It'll take half that to haul ass to the courthouse." Pause; both Chin and Kono could see in their mind's eye an image of Steve McGarrett looking away, calculating the odds. "Tell Takahara to move it. Tell him to keep an eye out for a few tied up suspects. I'll get Danny there in time to testify. You keep working on the tape. McGarrett out."

Chin closed up the cell, slipping it into his pocket, glancing nervously at Hanolo's men. They hadn't moved, and Chin wondered just what that meant.

He wasn't about to ask them, not at the moment. There was a lead to trace, and a prosecuting attorney bearing down on them.

Wing moved into earshot. "What's the word?"

"We've got him," Chin announced. "McGarrett's bringing Williams in. They'll be here any minute."

"Yeah? Good," Wing responded. "You let me know the instant they get here, Kelly. I'll tell the judge that we have another witness on his way; maybe he'll let us have more time to get Williams here. What about the tape? You said you were tracking that down."

"Getting closer," Kono said. "We've ruled out most of the suspects in the chain of custody. There's just one more. I'm headed over to the Evidence Room to check him out."

"Who is it?" Wing asked.

Chin didn't have to consult the tablet. "Guy by the name of Nathan Detroit. You know him, maybe in your department? I couldn't find anyone by that name associated with HPD."

Wing thought for a moment. "No. Doesn't ring a bell." He glanced at his watch. "How long before McGarrett and Williams get here? Judge Hardaway isn't known for granting extensions."

"It'll be close," Kono warned him.


	10. Silence Is His Friend

Steve arrived back to his car first, but didn't approach the vehicle. The low-slung model wasn't the best one to bring over the dirt-paved paths, but time had been short with no time to change motors.

Likewise, time was short and the need at the moment great, and Steve needed all the moments that he could get. He selected his spot in the brush, and waited impatiently.

It didn't take long. Three of Hanolo's men hot-footed it onto the path, hustling over to Steve's car to examine the thing. One even put his hand onto the hood, judging correctly that the engine hadn't turned over for the last couple of hours. As long as they didn't raise the hood, Steve thought, that was okay with him. Detaching some of the wires that went from Point A to Point B in the engine would put a serious crimp in Steve's plans. It would take too long to reattach the wires so that he could start the engine.

Hanolo's people were satisfied with the situation. They thought that they'd outrun him. It was a reasonable conclusion—but wrong.

It took another precious couple of minutes for them to decide on a plan that Steve knew was an inevitable conclusion. They elected to separate into three different hiding spots, the better to take aim at an ex-Navy SEAL and his limping partner arriving at their mode of transportation, with the intent of killing both SEAL and cop and leaving their bleeding bodies on the path for someone to find. Steve waited until the three had settled into their respective sniper's nests, then moved.

Quiet. Always quiet. Silence was his friend.

Steve slipped up behind the first one. The only reason the man didn't go down instantly was that Steve needed a moment to decide if his fingers would reach around the man's fat neck with sufficient force to do the job.

They did. Steve cut off blood flow to the brain, pressing hard, until the man's eyes rolled back up into his head. A moment more to make certain, and then he eased the heavy body silently to the ground. A bit of rope from his pack ensured that the man wouldn't be going anywhere very soon.

One down. Two to go.

Number Two's neck was even thicker than Number One's, and Steve didn't have a better option. He used the rope intended for securing the victim for wrapping around the man's neck, choking him into submission. The man writhed, trying to shout, kicking at the surrounding brush. Noisy, too noisy; Steve cursed his luck. It hadn't been loud, but even a hint of sound was too much.

No help for it. Number Three might have been warned, or perhaps not. It all depended on how savvy the man was, how well he knew his business.

Steve located the third man in the brush, across the dirt road. Steve would need to cross open ground in order to get to him, would be an easy target for a man with a gun. Steve fingered his own gun, wondering if he should simply take aim and fire. It was at the far distance of range for his handgun, but it was possible. Possible, but not Steve's style. Killing would be too good for the man. Steve wanted him to face a judge and jury for what he'd done to Danno.

Steve waited until the man turned his head to look down the road, then crossed with his breath held. Would there be a gunshot, a bullet aimed at his back?

Safe in the brush on the other side of the path. The man turned to scan the other portion of the road, skimming right over Steve's new hiding place. Step one: accomplished.

It was the _haole_ from the bar, one of Hanolo's men, the one that had escaped while Steve tended to his wounded teammate. This was the one that Kono had identified as being a cut above the rest, someone who knew what he was doing. Steve could bet that this was the one running the operation to try to get Hanolo out of his tough spot.

He studied the man. Caucasian, not as tall as Steve himself, which meant that Steve had a longer reach. Muscle; all muscle. Sinews flexed beneath a grimy white tee, and Steve smothered a grim smile. He'd just bet that the tee had been less grimy before this all started, and he felt proud of his partner. A lot of the damage to the tee—and the man who wore it—had happened because Danny had had the guts to roll the jeep off of the cliff. Without that, Danny would still be in this _haole's_ clutches, and Steve would be considering how to extract a half-dead hostage, never mind keeping Hanolo in jail.

No, the odds were now in Steve's favor, even though the _haole_ didn't know it. It didn't matter that the man held his own handgun; handguns weren't for close-in work. Time to cash in the chips. Steve McGarrett advanced on silent feet. Crouching, he sprang at the man.

Too late he saw the knife in the man's hand. Twisting in mid-air, Steve tried to avoid the danger.

A flash of fire-tipped agony in his arm told him that he'd only been partially successful. Steve didn't realize that he'd yelled out until the echoes of sound died away.

With the knife, the advantage of Steve's reach melted away. The knife gave the haole another six inches, enough to match Steve's longer arms with a sharp blade to increase the danger. Steve also noted the coiled whip lashed to the man's belt, and knew instantly with cold fury that this was the man responsible for Danno's condition.

This _haole_ was going _down_.

Not subtle, and not gentle. Steve put away the fire in his arm as something that would interfere with the mission. He stepped in; he blocked the downward strike of the knife almost negligently. Slam forward with the palm of his hand—temper it just _so_ to avoid a killing strike. Rattle the brains.

The man staggered back. Steve drove himself forward, pursuing. Another blow to the head, with agony to the ear drums. The man clapped his hands to his ears, dropping the knife in his sudden pain.

Not good enough. Steve grabbed one arm to haul the man forward, keeping him off balance. A sweep of the foot, and he knocked the man's legs from beneath him. The man fell to the forest floor.

Steve still had hold of the man's arm. He yanked. The arm came out of its socket.

The _haole_ screamed.

* * *

><p>This, Kono knew, would be as much of a performance as anything she'd done in the bar to bring Hanolo in.<p>

Chin was still working on trying to find this 'Nathan Detroit' who had signed out the tape from the Evidence Room. Emerson had signed it out to him. Emerson's finances had come up clean, but that didn't mean that he wasn't dirty. It just meant that he'd done a better job of covering his trail. If anyone could do it, it would be Emerson. The man had had some forty years with HPD, and had seen every way it could be done. He'd know the ways it could fail, and the things to avoid. 'Nathan Detroit' could be a ploy to distract Five-O while he got away.

So she couldn't alert him. She couldn't clatter down the stairs to the Evidence Room, excited and upset and obvious. Before Kono opened the door to the corridor leading to the Evidence Room, she took a long moment to pause and settle her nerves.

Ralph 'Emerson' Waldo was just over sixty-five, with white hair in unruly ringlets all over his head; no male-pattern balding in his genes. He was only an inch or two taller than Kono herself, and almost as slender. He always wore half-glasses and had, he'd once told her, since the day he'd turned fifty. Now he added a magnifying glass to his regimen for the times when even the cheaters weren't enough. Soon, the word was, he wouldn't need the magnifying glass. His retirement party was set for the sixteenth of next month, never mind the squawks of refusal.

If Emerson was dirty, Kono wouldn't need any help in taking him down. The biggest difficulty that she would have would be to avoid breaking any bones while doing it. That wasn't the point; if he was dirty, Kono and her team wanted the connections, the details, and—most of all—a confession. That would go a long way toward ensuring that Hanolo and his people would spends years behind bars until they all looked like Emerson.

So Kono put a spring into her step and a smile on her face. "Yo, Emerson," she called out. "You in there?"

"I'm here. I'm here." Emerson limped toward the front of the room, the window barred from the inside. "I'm _always_ here."

Kono frowned. "You okay?"

"Just my sciatica acting up, missy." Emerson changed the subject. "You find Williams yet?"

"Yes." Kono let her relief show on her face. "Steve has him. He's bringing him in to testify." They discussed this, she and Chin, whether or not to tell the truth to Emerson. Keep the pressure low, or wrachet it up by telling Emerson that the end game was close? They'd finally decided to put Emerson to the test. If he was dirty, then he'd be rattled by the thought that Hanolo would be going down. If Emerson was clean, he'd only be grateful that the cop that he knew and worked with was alive.

"Good." Emerson seemed genuinely pleased to hear that. Maybe he was simply a good actor?

Kono pressed on. "We're still trying to track down whoever wiped the tape."

Emerson sniffed. "I'm hoping you've already erased my name from the list, missy. Or are you sniffing around my retirement investments? I'll save you the trouble," he added. "I've been moving some fairly large sums around. Let me know if you want the account numbers."

"Thanks. I'll do that." No need to tell the man that they'd already dug into his background. Kono relaxed just that little bit more; Emerson's response was sounding better and better, and that was a relief. Kono really didn't _want_ the gentle old man to be a traitor to the department.

"So, what can I do for you, Kono? You said you were still tracking the tape. How can I help?"

Kono took a deep breath. "We can't find the last name to sign out the tape, Emerson, this Nathan Detroit person, from the D.A.'s office. We've been through the databases, three times, and nobody's heard about him. He's not leaving any records. Now, it could be a glitch in the computer systems—"

"Little lady, are you daft?" Emerson demanded.

Kono blinked. "What do you mean?"

"Haven't you ever heard of Nathan Detroit?"

"Uh…no?"

Emerson snorted. "What are they teaching you youngsters these days?" He leaned forward. "Nineteen fifty, missy. Broadway. Written by a guy named Loesser, little musical called 'Guys and Dolls', based on a couple of stories by Damon Runyan—you heard of him, right? Upbeat sort of thing about romance—and gangsters. Head gangster was a guy called _Nathan Detroit_." He settled himself back into his chair. "Now, you think you're going to find 'Nathan Detroit' in your fancy computer files?"

Kono's heart sank. "Then…"

Emerson nodded. "Means somebody came in, flashed some real ID at me, signed in with a wrong moniker, and waltzed out with the tape."

Kono swallowed. "You remember who it was?"

Emerson shook his head sorrowfully. "Me, I'm good, but I'm not that good. I don't know all hundred of the people working in the D.A.'s office. I got a couple hundred people coming in and out of here all day long. No way I'm going to remember just one of those instances."

* * *

><p>Sleeping, or had he passed out? Danny considered the problem, and dismissed it as inconsequential.<p>

What had a great deal more relevance was that his boss, one Lieutenant Commander Steve McGarrett, had slipped his hands under Danny's head and shoulders and was hoisting him onto his feet.

Oh, and had Danny mentioned that his eyes didn't work particularly well without a source of blood to keep them going?

Apparently he just did, because the aforementioned lieutenant commander was chuckling at him. Bastard.

Well, then how about the fact that Detective Danny Williams was about to do a face plant right in the middle of the pineapple patch?

In response to that, Danny felt his arm being wrapped over Steve's shoulders, and Steve's hand snagged Danny's belt, supporting his weight. Danny's head, bereft of any support from his neck, lolled heavily against Steve's arm. His knees sagged.

"You can do this, Danno. My car is just down the hill."

"That's all right, then. It's all down hill." Danny swallowed hard, commanding his insides to stay inside where they belonged. "You sure we have to move this fast?"

His boss turned sober. "Only if we want Hanolo to get what's coming to him."

"Yeah. I can get into that." Pause. "Am I moving faster now?"

"Not noticeably. No."

"How about now?"

"Oh, definitely."

"Liar."

"Guilty as charged."

Danny concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other. He also concentrated on breathing past the stabbing in his side. "Are we there yet?"

"Almost."

Suddenly Steve's hands that held him upright changed position, easing Danny into what felt—and smelled—suspiciously like Steve's car. Danny almost gratefully sank onto the seat, air whistling out of him in a groan, feeling Steve strapping the seatbelt securely around him. Vision was a lost cause, but the leather of the seat in the car was soothing to his lacerated back, sending tendrils of sun-heated warmth to ease the pain.

He never knew when Steve started the engine, moving the car over uneven ground as fast as it would go.

* * *

><p>"Just as I predicted." Mr. Wing, the prosecutor, joined Chin and Kono outside the courtroom. "I approached His Honor, and it doesn't please him to extend the time limit to get Williams into the courtroom. He wants to get home to his dinner. Why, I couldn't tell you since I hear that his wife is a terrible cook, but I'm not about to say that to him. How long will it take McGarrett to get Williams here?"<p>

Chin automatically glanced up at the oversized clock on the wall, easing his arm in its sling. "It'll be close. Steve intends to run a few red lights."

Wing followed his gaze. "What about a police escort? Clear the road?"

Kono had the answer. "We thought about that, but that will only warn Hanolo's people," and she jerked her thumb at the oversized trio down the hall still watching the Five-O detectives, "that they're on the way in. Steve is worried about snipers outside the courthouse."

Wing looked alarmed. "You think that Hanolo's got a sniper on his payroll? He's not that big, officer."

"He doesn't have to be big," Chin responded. "He just has to be lucky. Some of his known associates are ex-military, mustered out as soon as they found out that service to your country meant hard work. At least one of them knows his way around a rifle."

"Which means that we can't afford to take a chance," Kono chimed in. "Steve is going to arrive quietly at the back entrance, slip Danny in and up to the courtroom before anyone knows that they've arrived. There's too much open ground in front; too much opportunity for a good shot from one of those snipers."

"Good plan." Wing nodded grimly. He jerked his head toward the courtroom. "I'll go work on the judge some more. Maybe I can get him to change his mind, give your people a few more minutes." He sighed. "Prayer wouldn't hurt, either."

* * *

><p>Steve glanced briefly at the man in the seat next to him. The primary source of movement in his partner was the car, taking the curves at speeds only achieved by expert training or by insanity. The chest occasionally rose and fell, but not nearly well enough to suit Steve. <em>Should I be headed toward the nearest emergency room instead of the courthouse? Will I be bringing in a dead witness?<em>

No. Danny would never forgive himself—or Steve—if Hanolo walked. It was the man's reason for being. Dan Williams worked, lived, and breathed being a cop, and he was good at it. The only excuse for Danno not to testify would be if he were still in the clutches of Hanolo's people—or dead.

Danny Williams wasn't dead yet. He wouldn't be for a long time, if Steve McGarrett had anything to say about it. Steve fed more gas to the engine, speeding up out of the curve to take advantage of the mile of straight road before city streets with traffic and pedestrians took over.

Cell phone time. "Chin?"

"Right here, boss."

"What's the word?"

"All set on this end. Kono's in position. We're ready."

One more quick glance at Danny, sleeping in the front seat. _Sleeping? Hell, call it what it was, Steve: unconscious. 'Half-dead' works, too. _ "You have some medics stashed in the basement?"

"And an ambulance in the garage. They'll take over as soon as Danny finishes testifying. The prosecutor wasn't able to persuade the judge to wait," Chin added. "It's all up to you, Steve."


	11. Diversion

Chin closed up the cell, sticking it into the sling rather than reach all the way down to his pocket. If he had to wear the damn thing, he'd make it do more than simply support his arm.

The trio of Hanolo's goons was gone. He could see the remnants of their path, cutting a large swath through the oncoming crowd of prospective jurors being shepherded into place by a court official. The trio must have just left, he realized. He pulled out the cell once more.

"Kono."

"Kono, it's Chin. The three in here? They're on the move." He moved toward the window that looked out over the back of the courthouse, scanning the surroundings. "I can't see them from here." He sniffed. "Tell Hernandez to pull his ass back. That's the only part of him that's sticking out from between those two cars. He's going to get it shot off if it comes down to gunplay."

Kono's voice came back, cool as ever and without humor. "I'll do that."

"Everyone in place?"

"Everyone. _Every_ last one of them," she added with certainly, "except for your three, and they'll wedge themselves into position in a moment. Tell Steve he can bring Danny in."

* * *

><p>Coming in hot.<p>

Steve spared one last glance for the man in the car seat beside him. Still breathing, and that was a plus. Color: not so great, and Steve blessed the fact that the fabric to the seat cushion was leather. He'd have a bitch of a time trying to get Danny's blood out of a cloth backing.

Have the man testify and put Hanolo behind bars, and Steve would put up with the stain. Having Danno walk out of the hospital, sniping at his boss, and Steve would put up with even more.

Steve's arm stung, and he looked over that, too. Damn bastard with a knife. It was the hood with the whip, too, and Steve's biggest regret was that he hadn't had the opportunity to cause the thug more pain. The slice on Steve's arm was shallow, but with the adrenaline wearing off it was hurting as though someone was dripping hot lava into it for a bandage. No matter; the blood had already dried over the laceration, which meant that it could wait until he got his partner squared away some place with cool white linens, a intravenous bag filled with pain-killers, and a bunch of angels in scrubs taking care of him.

Time for some more adrenaline: the entrance to the courthouse would be fast and furious. The less time they spent outside meant less time exposed to a lucky sniper, and Steve McGarrett intended to use more than luck. He intended to use deceit.

It was time: Steve pushed down on the accelerator, and the vehicle leaped forward with all the power he'd tuned into the engine.

Skid through one red light, leaving an angry motorist honking but intact.

Dodge a city bus. Not hard. The thing moved like, well, a city bus. _D'oh_.

Target in sight: the Hawaii State Courthouse, complete with a three hundred foot expanse of concrete in front with no cover whatsoever. Any idiot trying to bring in a witness with a bull's eye on his back would immediately reconsider and go around back to the more secluded entrance where the exposed distance was only thirty feet instead of three hundred.

Lt. Commander Steve McGarrett wasn't just any idiot.

_Diversion: the act of diverting or causing to be diverted; to turn aside. Also: a distraction from business or amusement_. _Military: a feint intended to draw off attention from the point of the main attack._

Steve McGarrett wasn't amused and he wasn't turning aside, but he was all in favor of diverting the enemy. Hanolo's people _knew_ he was coming in with the only man who could ensure that Hanolo would spend the next fifty to life behind bars, and they would be ready with sniper specials to make sure that man didn't testify. Hanolo's people _knew_ that Steve McGarrett would do the smart thing, and aim for the back entrance so that he'd only have to drag Danny Williams thirty feet instead of three hundred.

They were wrong.

Steve squealed the tires, stomping on the brakes, leaving black skid marks on the pavement in _front_ of the Courthouse.

Chin was waiting for them. One-handed, he yanked open the car door, neatly catching Danny before the man could topple over onto the cement. Not enough; Chin needed his other hand to keep going. Biting back a snarl, Chin pulled his wounded arm out of its sling, trusting to his own supply of adrenaline to prevent it from hurting.

Steve appeared next to him, stuffing the car keys into his pocket. "Let's go." He grabbed Danny's other side, shoring him up. They had three hundred feet to cover, and fast.

"I can walk," Danny protested, helpless in their grasp.

"Yeah, I hear you learned to do it right before you went through your toddler years," Steve told him, "but I don't want to be out here all day. Move!" He fumbled with Chin's loaner cell phone. "Kono?"

"Yeah, boss?"

"Take 'em out."

* * *

><p>Kono stood to the side of the door, ready to give the word. <em>How did I get into this position of command so fast? I'm only a rookie. I'm not ready for this!<em>

Ready or not, this was her operation and a man's life lay in the balance. A man, she reminded herself, who had saved her life by playing his role to the hilt. Peter Hanolo had wanted Kono killed in the bar that night, and Danny had prevented that disaster from happening.

It was her turn.

She nodded at Walker, a huge mountain of a man armed with a battering ram. Officer Rodney, equally as large, stood on the other side of the door.

"Police! Open up!" Rodney bellowed, just a split second before Walker smashed the battering ram into the door, breaking it open.

Kono darted inside. "Police! Freeze!"

Rapid assessment: three men. Sniper rifle, on a tripod, aimed through the open window. Two handguns—_crap, one was firing right at her!_

Rodney barreled into her from behind, saving Kono from becoming a corpse on the spot.

No time to curse her own stupidity. Her handgun had been knocked from her grasp, had skittered along the hard linoleum floor, out of reach. Kono leaped to her feet and snapped out a front kick that whacked the gun out of one sniper's hand. He yelped in sudden pain, clutching his wrist with his good hand. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Walker, still armed with the battering ram, use the tool as a club. One blow: the man went down with a _crunch_ that promised orthopedic surgery in the near future. Walker went for his handcuffs to secure the prisoner.

_Pay attention, Kono!_ Spinning back kick, well-aimed, connected to the jaw.

Exit one sniper.

Rodney blocked the punch from the third and last thug, but missed the return uppercut. He staggered back, blood flowing from his nose and eyes rolling back into his head.

Kono's handgun was on the floor in front of the hood. The third thug spotted it.

No time. Kono delivered a sharp heel to the back of the man's knee. It collapsed beneath him, sending him down toward the floor. Good; now he was within Kono's reach. She wrapped one arm around his neck and squeezed.

He bellowed—or he tried to. Nothing emerged from his throat, not even air. Without air, he couldn't breathe. His face got redder and redder; he fumbled at her arms, trying to dislodge the smaller woman, without success.

He fell over.

Kono jumped back, out of the way, to avoid being pinned underneath him. She inhaled deeply, drawing in oxygen, shaking.

Officer Rodney staggered to his feet, wiping the blood from his nose. "Thanks," he gasped, picking up his own handgun and stuffing it back into its holster. "I owe you one." _You may be a rookie, but you're a cop worth serving with_.

Kono nodded; there would be time for relief later on, once these three were locked up. "That means we're even."

Her victim's cell phone jingled. Kono banished the shakes and plucked it up. She tapped the receive button.

The voice that was emitted from the thug's cell didn't wait for any salutation. "Bastard came in the _front!_ Get around there now! Take him out! Take him out!"

Kono grinned at the trio of prisoners. "Can't wait to trace this call," she told them.

* * *

><p>Without Steve and Chin, Danny Williams would have been on his hands and knees on the concrete pavement in front of the Courthouse, easy game for any sniper who had eluded the back entrance gambit. Instead, the pair hooked their hands underneath his arms, all but dragging him into the courthouse and down the long corridor to the courtroom where Peter Hanolo was facing the judge, the suspect expecting to be released any moment. Onlookers stared as the members of Five-O passed; not one of the trio cared. They had more important things in mind.<p>

They paused just outside the courtroom.

"Danno?" Steve asked. _Can you do this?_

Danny stared at the taller man, uncomprehending, and Steve's stomach plunged. Was the man too far gone to make sense in these legal proceedings? Then Danny took a deep breath, and both Steve and Chin could see him pull something from deep within himself. Danny stood taller, straighter, and his eyes cleared. His knees stiffened. He straightened his torn collar.

He couldn't do anything about the dirt or the rips in the fabric of his shirt, but he could march in with his head held high. "Let's go."

Steve and Chin pushed open the doors. Danny walked in, barely limping, refusing to hang onto the chairs to either side of the aisle to keep from falling. The crowd hushed; Peter Hanolo's eyes narrowed.

Judge Hardaway stared. "Prosecutor?"

Wing's jaw dropped. "Uh…uh, the State…I mean, the prosecution would like…uh, to call another…"

"Another witness, Mr. Wing?" Judge Hardaway's glare was hard to miss. "Why wasn't I informed that Detective Williams was on his way into my courtroom?" He ostentatiously set down the gavel he was about to use. "I won't be needing this for a few minutes. Court will remain in session until I am damn good and ready to stop." He turned to the bailiff. "Swear in the witness, Mr. Shannon. Oh, never mind, I'll do it myself. Do you swear, and all that, Detective Williams?"

"Yeah." Danny wobbled, and grabbed onto the chair beside him.

"He do it?" Judge Hardaway pointed at Hanolo.

"Yeah."

"Good enough for me. Defendant is held over for trial," Judge Hardaway intoned. "Put him on the docket. Court dismissed."


	12. His Honor Is Not Finished

Over. It was over. He could collapse now, and let everyone else take over the challenge of breathing and standing upright and generally remaining awake to interact with the world. Danny Williams had had a tough day and was ready to pack it in. He grabbed at the back of the chair; okay, maybe he _wasn't_ quite ready to fall down on his face. The whole concept sounded as though it would hurt. He'd had enough of hurting to last a lifetime.

Others weren't so ready to quit, Judge Hardaway among them. "Mr. Wing," he said clearly, so that his voice rang through the courtroom, "I believe you and I have a discussion to conduct, something about the whereabouts of another witness? I will see you in my chambers _now_." He scanned the crowd. "Detective Kelly, I'd like you to be present in that discussion, to tell me what information you gave to Mr. Wing regarding this case."

Chin developed a crooked smile. "Yes, Your Honor. My pleasure."

Judge Hardaway turned to Danny. "Detective, you might want to sit down. You don't look as though standing is in your best interests."

"Yes, Your Honor." Was that his voice saying that, or his wobbling knees? It didn't matter; not one body part seemed willing to obey his brain which was screeching _get your ass perched on something solid before we fall!_

Danny saw a dark shadow moving in on him, felt someone take hold of his arm. Damn, but he wished his eyes were working better. The worried chuckle told him that the dark shadow was Steve. "Time to let go, Danno."

Not that Danny could see that far away, but someone in the spot where Peter Hanolo was located jumped to his feet. "You can't do this!" he shouted at Judge Hardaway. "I'm innocent! I'm innocent!" He pointed at Danny. "He's the one who's lying! Put him on trial!"

Judge Hardaway rose more sedately from his chair from behind the bench. "Bailiff, escort the prisoner back to his cell."

"Yes, sir." The bailiff started forward.

"No!" Hanolo shoved his defense attorney aside, slamming away the desk in front of him. "No, you're not taking me!"

"Hey!" the bailiff objected. "Settle down!"

Hanolo's reply was unprintable. Hands still manacled, he grabbed his own chair and swung it at the bailiff.

_Trouble_. Steve's strong support was suddenly gone, headed for the greater danger, leaving Danny clutching for the chair once more. Danny blinked, trying to keep track of the action, wishing his brain would cooperate with the process of thinking.

Screams: the onlookers were scrambling to escape.

Steve: headed for Hanolo. Bailiff on the floor, blood on his face but getting up.

Chin: moving toward the back of the room. The back? What the—? Crap; three more mountain-sized goons were rumbling forward. And Chin thought he was going to stop them, all by himself? Chin Ho Kelly was crazier than Lt. Commander Steve Coconut-Brain McGarrett!

Danny had to do his part. He was a cop, wasn't he? This was a courtroom, and a fight was in progress. It was his duty to keep the peace. He forced his leg to take a step forward—and sank to one knee.

Someone in a dark robe brushed by him—was that…?

Hell, yes. It was Judge Hardaway, silver in his hair and fire in his eye.

* * *

><p>This was going to hell in a handbasket. Steve McGarrett did a rapid sit-rep: Hanolo, manacled but still dangerous. Bailiff with minimal injury, getting up to subdue the prisoner. Chin headed for the three bogies storming in from the back of the courtroom, all three of the bogies weighing in over three hundred pounds. Muscle? Some, but not much. Mostly fat.<p>

However, when there were six arms and six legs, it didn't much matter whether it was backed by muscle or blubber. Hell, one of 'em could sit on Chin while the rest took him apart. _Sorry, Danno. You're going to have to sit this one out. _Literally_ sit this one out_. Steve left his partner clutching the furniture, trying not to fall, while Steve himself headed for the greater problem.

First step: yank the wood chair from Hanolo's meaty hands. Palm strike to the sweet spot; Hanolo's face went white as the breath left his chest in a whoosh. The suspect wouldn't be breathing for another two to three long minutes, enough time for the bailiff to get himself up off of the floor and get his prisoner under control.

Step two: subdue the three clowns. Chin had already thrown his sling down to the floor; no sense in letting one of the goons grab it and try to strangle the cop. An objection from his own arm reminded Steve that he had yet to get the knife cut from Hanolo's man back in the Kahana Preserves tended to.

Not going to bother right now. Steve McGarrett had a few things more important to deal with. Three of them, in fact, and all three wanting to remove their boss Peter Hanolo from his predicament.

Steve waded in, throwing his first punch at the closest thug, aiming for the same sweet spot that had collapsed Hanolo. No good; his fist simply sank into blubber. It hurt, but not enough. The man roared and lashed out with his own fist, grazing Steve's cheek and drawing blood with a gem-encrusted ring.

Boxing wasn't going to work. This opponent would simply soak up the punishment and come back for more. Judo? Doubtful. The man's center of gravity was so low that it would take a bulldozer to knock him off his feet. Even trying for a chokehold meant wrapping his hands around the man's neck, and Steve didn't think that his hands would reach. In the meantime, there were only two Five-O men capable of doing more than throwing a dirty glare, and three of the enemy.

Steve was going to have to carefully place his blows. Jab to the nose: blood flowed, and the man staggered back. Hanolo's man recovered too quickly, though, roaring and throwing all of his not inconsiderable weight into the short run forward.

He grabbed Steve by the waist, bowling him over. The pair crashed into more chairs, going down _hard_ to the floor, Steve underneath—just as his opponent wanted. The breath whoofed out of him, and Steve saw stars.

Hadn't someone called for help yet? There had been two additional bailiffs for the earlier portion of the arraignment, Chin had told him, and their presence was sorely needed _now_. Out of the corner of his eye, Steve saw one of the other of Hanolo's men grab Chin by his arm—the arm with the white bandage on it. The man had correctly deduced that applying pressure to the wound would result in a positive result for Hanolo's cause. He applied a _lot_ of pressure.

He was right. Chin wilted, and the man landed a jawbreaker that sent Chin flying.

This was getting out of hand. Steve and company were the good guys! They were supposed to be winning, not being taken down by a bunch of two-bit thugs with an overweight piece of slime for a boss. Another piece of slime was on top of Steve right now, punching with pudgy fists, doing his best to inflict damage. The fists didn't—but the damn ring was gouging out chunks of flesh!

Time to take control. Summoning up all his strength, Steve heaved the mountain of blubber off of him, rolling over onto his hands and knees. He shook his head hard, to clear away the cobwebs, hard and fast because Jumbo over there wasn't going to give any more time than he had to. Jumbo too lumbered onto his hands and knees, clambering up into a standing position. Jumbo aimed a kick designed to separate Steve's ribs from his spine.

No more Lieutenant Commander Nice Guy. Steve lashed out with one long foot covered in a hard hiking boot. The boot had worked well for hauling his partner out of the Kahana Preserves, and it worked equally well for reminding Hanolo's man that Steve McGarrett wasn't going to take this lying down. The boot connected with an extraordinarily sensitive organ, and the man screeched in suddenly soprano distress.

That gave Steve the moment's breathing room that he needed. No more punching. This called for flat out strikes designed for immediate take downs. Heel of the palm to the nose, and the man went from clutching below to clutching his nose. Double strike to both ears; the hands flew to that damaged part.

Almost home. Taking a deep breath to lend him power, Steve launched an uppercut to the jaw.

It was almost comical. The man's eyes slowly rolled up in his head. He swayed back and forth, uncertain of which direction the mighty oak would fall.

Backward. Three wooden chairs failed to break the man's downward momentum.

Steve staggered around to scan the remaining field. One down, two to go, and it wasn't fair! This one thug had sapped almost all of his strength, and they expected him to do the same for two other massive mounds of men? Number Two had Chin locked in his grasp, while Number Three was proving that he could do a better job than meat tenderizer in pounding muscle into jelly. Then—

A feminine yell erupted from behind the two men beating up on Chin. Number Three yelped, and his knee went out from under him; he dropped half way to the floor.

It was Kono. Coming in from the back, she had instantly figured out what was going on—and she was _pissed_. Snap kick to the back of the knee, and Number Three's head was suddenly low enough for her to reach.

A punch with a rock hard fist wasn't going to do it. She'd figured that out by watching her boss take a pounding. A spinning back kick fueled by fury to the thug's jaw did a much better job.

Number Three crashed to the floor.

That left Number Two. He let Chin slide bonelessly to the floor, ignoring his victim as someone who wasn't a threat any longer. There were only two people that Number Two needed to concern himself with: a wiped out lieutenant commander and a tiny slip of a girl that he out-weighed with another ten inches of reach as well. Oh, and did he mention that he out-weighed the chick cop by more than twice her weight? Without surprise to back her up, the bitch hadn't a chance. Steve took a step forward, trying to insist that his exhausted supply of adrenaline restore itself so that he could counter this last threat. He could do this. He could. Right.

Black fabric swished past Steve, and it took him more than a dazed moment to figure out who it was: Judge Hardaway. It was actually Judge Hardaway with a baseball bat in his hands and fire in his eye. Judge Hardaway apparently kept the bat beside his chair and under cover for just these sorts of occasions.

Hardaway swung the bat like a home run hitter, catching Number Two in the shoulder.

"I will not—"

A return blow to the other shoulder.

"—have my courtroom—"

Last blow, jammed deep to the gut, just above the belt.

"—disrupted!"

Number Three went down.

Judge Hardaway hoisted the bat up and onto his shoulder, glaring at the miscreants and simultaneously taking in the sorry state of the rest of the combatants.

"Ex-Army Ranger," he announced to the room with a certain grim satisfaction. "Went to law school on the GI bill." He aimed a special glower just for Steve McGarrett. "Navy. Huh."

* * *

><p>Hot. No, cold. No, both at the same time. How the hell could he be both hot and cold?<p>

There were voices floating over his head, too, dancing around in the cavernous room of the courthouse. He recognized one of them: Steve. Good. Steve was good. That meant that Danny wasn't in the hands of Cutler and his whip. _Bastard_. Danny hoped Steve took that pile of coconut shavings down hard.

Worried chuckle. "I did, Danno. I did."

"Good," Danny said, wondering if the word actually emerged from his lips. Since Steve had responded to Danny's thoughts, he supposed that he was actually speaking them out loud. Danny blinked, but the blurry figures in front of him refused to come clear. And he _hurt_.

It hurt to breathe. Hell, it was suddenly _hard_ to breathe. Every breath that he tried to pull in never reached his lungs, and his ribs stabbed him as badly as Cutler had with his whip.

"Danno?"

No, talking back to Steven this time was not going to happen. Gasping for breath, yes. Talking, no.

Vision failed him completely, though he could still hear voices above him. Strong hands lifted him up and deposited him onto something cold and narrow—and flat.

Flat was not good. It made it harder to breathe, and he was already having enough difficulty as it was. He tried to sit up, but hands pushed him back down.

"Danno! Danno, listen to me! We're trying to help you. Don't fight, Danno!"

_Right. You try not breathing, and don't fight to sit up. I double dog dare you._

More hands, pinning him down. Something got strapped over his chest, trapping his arms and hands beneath it. _Yo, guys! It's Hanolo that you're supposed to be taking down. Me, I'm one of the good guys, remember?_

_I…guess…not…_

* * *

><p>"Get the medics up here!" Steve bawled, dropping to his knees beside his partner. "Danny! Danny, talk to me! Where the hell are the medics?"<p>

Bad. It looked bad, and Steve once more wondered if he should have bagged the court appearance in favor of a fast trip to the emergency room. _Little late now, genius!_ Any doctor in the area would have said _hell, yes_ and followed it up with a psychiatric evaluation for one Steve McGarrett's sanity for thinking otherwise.

But Peter Hanolo was going down, and hard, and so were a number of the man's mob. That was what every cop strived for, and Dan Williams was one hell of a cop. Danny would have told Lt. Cmdr. Steve McGarrett that the trade-off was worth it in a heartbeat.

_Yeah, well, Danny, your heart isn't beating very well right now. Not a real good heartbeat you've got. Even I can tell that._

"Let's get him onto the stretcher and move," one medic said grimly. "You want to tube him, Roy?"

"Nah. This one's a fighter." Roy fended off one flailing arm easily, grabbing Danny's wrist and securing it before the man could punch out the medic trying to help him. "On the count of three."

"Three," the other medic broke in, reducing the count by two. The pair hoisted Danny onto the stretcher, Steve only belatedly trying to help as he realized what was going on.

His partner was openly panicking now, mouth wide and gasping for air that wasn't passing into his lungs. The man was beyond rational, and his unseeing eyes begged Steve for help.

Steve caught Danny's other fist, preventing it from landing on the medic's shoulder. "Danno! Danno, listen to me! We're trying to help you. Don't fight, Danno!"

"Thanks." Roy didn't bother to turn around. "Pin him down; let's get his arms under the belts so that he doesn't hurt himself." Now the medic did look up. "Let's get moving, Johnny. He doesn't have much time."

"I'm coming with you." Steve stood up—and the room swayed.

The medic eyed him grimly. "Sorry. No can do, guy. No room in the ambulance, especially not if I have to do some fast work—which I might," he added. "Sorry," he repeated. He jerked his thumb at Kono who was helping Chin into a chair. "You look like you need some attention yourself, you and your people. Look after them, why don't you? We'll take care of your man, here."

There was a rustle of black robes next to him, and the next thing Steve knew Judge Hardaway had his hand on Steve's arm, pushing him onto the hard wooden bench. "More help is on the way, Navy Boy," he told Steve. "You sit there and take orders, for a change." Judge Hardaway paused. "You did good, commander; you and your people. I'm going to put Hanolo and his people away for a long time."


	13. The End of the Story

"Chin's getting some x-rays right now," Kono informed Steve.

"Yeah, but how is he?" Steve wanted to know, perched on the side of the stretcher. There was a long white bandage wrapped around his arm, the arm that had been too slow to get out of the way of that knife, with a whole heck of a lot of stitches beneath the dressing. There was also the lingering ache of a recent injection of an antibiotic in his opposite shoulder, again as punishment for his lack of skill. Steve welcomed the pain as something right and just; if he'd been quicker to take down Hanolo's man in the Kahana Preserves, if he'd just been three minutes faster, they might not be in this mess. Steve wouldn't be sitting on this stretcher, waiting to get sprung. Chin wouldn't be getting pictures of the bruises on his belly and ribs, looking for broken pieces inside. And Danno wouldn't be in the cubicle next door in this emergency department providing entertainment for all of the new interns and residents to practice their newly acquired skills under the supervision of only slightly less new doctors.

"You can't blame yourself, Steve," Kono told him, reading his thoughts. "You did what no one else was able to do: you brought Danny out alive. Takahara and his SWAT team weren't able to do that, and they had a lot more resources."

"Yeah, but I've been trained to do this," Steve tried to say.

"So have they, or don't you know what the designation of 'SWAT' stands for?" Kono stood her ground.

There was no easy come-back to that, so Steve transferred his ire elsewhere. There was a lot of snarling and cursing going on in the room next to his, the room where Danny Williams had been put, and it was getting harder and harder for Steve to sit on the stretcher and listen. It sounded as though someone was trying to perform some sort of procedure on his partner, and that the process was not going well. Steve wanted to go over and shout, 'Get it right, dammit! Call somebody else in if you can't do it!' The only thing keeping him sitting on this stretcher was the fact that he hadn't heard Danno cry out in agony. That, he knew, would send him over the edge, and into the room next door to _make_ them do it right.

Danno hadn't looked good as they shoved him into the ambulance, strapped to a stretcher. The medics hadn't dallied, either, testament to their worry that they might have to breathe for the man before they arrived at the emergency room in order to keep him alive. Steve had wanted to go with them in the ambulance; they declined, citing not enough room. Steve had argued with them until Kono came to their rescue and insisted on carting both Steve and Chin to the hospital in her own car, sirens blaring as loudly as the one from the ambulance and traveling just as fast. They'd arrived directly on the heels of the ambulance and walked in behind the medics and the stretcher with Danny on it.

Still breathing; that was what Steve clung to. To the ex-Navy SEAL with a couple of courses of battlefield medicine under his belt, it was pretty obvious what had happened: the sharp end of a broken rib had punctured a lung, and that made it hard for that lung to inhale air. Somebody needed to do something about it quick. From the sounds emerging from the cubicle next door, Steve wasn't satisfied with their speed.

Kono too looked grim, trying to ignore what was happening and focus on her boss. "Chin will be sore, at the very least, but the doc seemed to think that he could go home as soon as the x-rays were cleared." She trailed off, looking over toward the cubicle next door. More unhappy noises kept coming out, and she was as jumpy as her boss.

A yell finally erupted, and that was the last straw. Steve pushed himself up off the stretcher. "Hey—"

The nurse appeared with Chin in a wheelchair, back from getting his picture taken, and cut off Steve's attack strategy for resolving the problem next door. She also had two sets of papers in her hands along with a couple smaller sets of prescriptions. "All ready," she told them. "We're springing you; go home and take it easy, both of you. No permanent damage to either of you, but you'll each be pretty uncomfortable for the next few days. You've got a designated driver? Good; take these pills and you'll be feeling no pain for the few hours."

Steve scowled, accepting his share of the little white pellets and shoving them down his throat. "How about my partner? Danny Williams?"

"Who?"

"My _partner_. The cop who came in just ahead of us," Steve pushed. "He wasn't breathing."

The nurse frowned. "Sir, we haven't had a code—any emergencies like that—since noon. Are you sure he came here—oh, you mean the _cop_."

"Yes, I mean the _cop_." Steve gritted his teeth, feeling the tension in the pair beside him that matched his own. "The man next door."

Understanding flooded the nurse's face, and she smiled gently. "Sir, your friend has already been cared for, and is currently in the intensive care unit; I took him upstairs myself almost an hour ago. And you don't have to worry; he never stopped breathing. He's doing just fine."

"What?" But they'd _seen_ the workers put Danny next door. "But those noises…those sounds…" Steve jerked his thumb at the cubicle next to them.

She nodded her head. "Yes, sir. I apologize for the distress. That gentleman has some mental health concerns, and he—and the rest of us!—are impatiently waiting for his medications to take effect and calm him down." She handed over the papers and prescriptions. "The ICU is on the second floor."

* * *

><p>"Danno! Danno! Can you hear me?"<p>

_Yeah, but if I wake up, I'm gonna hurt. Go away, Steve. Bother somebody else, why don't cha?_

"Why isn't he responding?"

"The nurse said he wouldn't, remember? Said she gave him some heavy-duty pain-killers."

_Good stuff. Helps me to understand why the druggies get hooked_.

"He's got a damn _hose_ going into his chest!"

"That's for his lung, Steve."

"I _know_ it's for his lung, Kono. It re-inflates the lung. It just looks…uncomfortable," Steve finished weakly.

"That's not the only hose he's got," Chin observed. "Look at the size of that one underneath the sheets. Can something that big really fit?"

_Don't even go there. I don't want to think about that one_.

"Three days," Kono said, the words floating airily above Danny. "That's what the docs said. They think he'll be ready to get out in three days."

_Three day vacation? I can handle that. Uh…maybe not. They really did jam those hoses in me. Somebody knock me out!_

"I think he's waking up. Danno? Danno, can you hear me?"

_Yes, I can hear you! Stop shouting in my ear!_

"I think he needs more pain meds. Listen to him; he sounds like he's in agony."

_I _am_ in agony. You're hurting my ear drums._

"Listen, Danno, they're kicking us out now but we'll be back. Don't go anywhere, hear me? We'll be back."

_Not…going…anywhere, Steve. Ummm….drugs nice…._

* * *

><p>Danny Williams glowered as Steve McGarrett rolled the car to a gentle halt in the driveway. "This is not my place."<p>

"Behold the detective," Steve smirked. "Once again, he deduces the obvious. Where did you think I'd be taking you? Into that shoebox you call a home?"

"Like, that's where my bed is, genius."

"It's also a dump, and it doesn't come with hot and cold running nurses. You'd be alone."

"It is not a dump, and I like being alone. I cherish my alone-ness. You, Steven, you're the one who needs an audience."

"You so do not like being alone. You pick up Grace every chance you get. How alone is that?"

"Which means that my place is not a dump," Danny shot back. "Do you think I'd expose my daughter to anything less than pristine cleanliness?"

"You're not saying anything about being alone," Steve observed. "Look, you were only allowed to leave the hospital because I promised that there would be someone around to take care of you and make sure that you didn't fall over and rip out your stitches. You want me to go back on my word to the doc?" He opened his car door, stretching out long legs to reach the driveway.

"Oh, so now you're worried about your reputation? Why couldn't you be this worried when you were dangling what's his name over a cage full of sharks?"

"You can argue all you want, Danno, but you're staying with me for the next few days, and that's final." Steve had no doubt that he'd win the argument. Danny didn't have the strength for a protracted battle. Steve crossed to the passenger side of his car to open the door for his unwilling guest. "You going to sit there all day, or are you going to come inside?"

"Only because _I_ care about what your neighbors are saying about you." Danny swung his feet out and stood up. "If I started to walk home, they'd talk."

Too fast. Blood drained out of his face, away from the remnants of two black eyes, and he whitened. Danny sagged back against the car. "Crap."

"No, you don't." Steve grabbed him under the arms, holding him upright. "Breathe deep. Hang onto me."

"I don't want to hang onto you. I want to sit down."

"You're going to _fall_ down if you don't listen. Yo, Kono! A little help, here?"

Kono darted out from inside Steve's house to pick up one side of the sagging cop. "Danny, you've got to lose weight. You're heavy."

"It's all muscle, Kono. No fat."

"I don't care if it's a ton of bricks. You're heavy. Pick up your feet," she scolded him, approaching the steps that led into Steve's home. "You can't climb the steps if you don't pick up your feet."

"I could always throw you over my shoulder," Steve suggested.

"Like hell you could." Danny put a little more effort into placing each foot onto the next stair tread, the pair helping him up and into the house.

Okay, so the man's descent to Steve's sofa was little more than a controlled fall. Sweat had beaded out on Danny's forehead, and Steve arranged the man's legs up onto the rest of the cushioning while Kono dragged a pillow over for his head. Danny's contribution to his status consisted of dragging in as much oxygen as he could into his recently re-inflated lung. Steve was satisfied with that; the memory of Danny gasping for breath just a few days ago was still too recent for comfort.

Chin emerged from Steve's kitchen, a tray of drinks in his hands. Danny eyed him suspiciously. "Aren't you supposed to be wearing a sling?"

Chin chuckled. "Dumped it yesterday, bro. I'm headed back to work Monday. You?"

Danny glowered. "I've been hijacked by Super-SEAL," he complained, jerking his thumb at his host. He changed the subject. "So, what's the word on Hanolo?"

Kono grinned; it had been her operation from the beginning, and she was pleased to be able to announce its end. "There's a court date scheduled for about two months from now, but nobody thinks that it's going to happen. Hanolo's lawyer is trying for a plea, and the _new_ prosecutor is arguing to throw the book at him."

Danny raised his eyebrows. "New prosecutor?"

Chin took over. "Wing, the old prosecutor—you remember him?"

"Not really. I was a little busy at the time. Breathing; know what I mean? Takes up a lot of your time."

Chin ignored the interruption. "It was Wing who erased the tape from Hanolo's night club. He came down to the Evidence Room and checked out the tape early in the morning, counting on the fact that Emerson would be too busy to remember everyone who came through. Wing folded quick; seems he was getting into financial difficulties. His law school loans were coming due, and prosecutors don't make all that much. Hanolo has had Wing in his pocket for several months, is what it looks like, but it was all petty stuff, until now. If this hadn't come up, Wing would still be employed and passing information to Hanolo."

"All it took was a magnet," Kono added. "He took the tape to one of the chambers, passed a magnet over the tape, and the evidence was gone. Nobody knew anything; Wing even wiped his fingerprints off the tape before returning it, just so the fake signature wouldn't stand out and give him away." She smiled grimly. "He lied to Judge Hardaway, too. He never told him that you were on the way to the courthouse. He intended to let the judge close the hearing before you ever got there. Hanolo would have walked, and Wing was going to disappear with the bonus that Hanolo promised him."

Chin set the tray of drinks on the table in front of Danny. "Wing's going to plead guilty. He'll be disbarred, too." He handed off a glass of something that looked vaguely like fruit juice and suspiciously healthy. Danny eyed it nervously. "Yeah, bro, it's good for you. Drink up."

Danny's hand shook under the meager weight of the glass, and Steve, fearing the worst for his furniture, took it from him. "Here. Doc say you need to get plenty of fluids." He helped his partner take a long sip, supporting his head. "Better?" _Hell, it couldn't be worse. Don't blame you for not wanting your daughter to see you like this; your face is a mess, and you'd scare the bejeebers out of her. Too close, bro. Too close._

"Yeah." Danny breathed deeply, catching his breath. "Not too bad." He tried raising his arms above his head, going for a position of ease—then winced, and put his arms back down. Any movement that pulled at the healing wounds on his partner's back, Steve realized grimly, were going to have to wait.

Danny moved back to the original subject, one that he had a personal interest in. "Hardaway," he remembered. "Judge Hardaway. Did I see what I thought I saw?"

"Yeah." It was a moment that Lt. Commander Steve McGarrett would cherish for many years: the ex-Army Ranger, baseball bat in hand, proving that you could take the boy out of the military, but you couldn't take the military out of the boy. That boded well for Steve's own plans for his future. "Seems that with the budget cuts, they don't always have enough bailiffs to keep order in the court. A baseball bat was Judge Hardaway's solution. Not particularly elegant, but it worked."

"Boy, does it work." Chin rubbed reminiscently at his own midriff, feeling the bruises underneath his tee. "I thought I was gone. No offense, Kono."

"None taken. Those mothers were _big_."

Danny settled back deeper onto the sofa, trying to ease the irritating pressure on his back. "Two down, one to go. What about Cutler, the little slime with a whip?"

Steve looked uncomfortable. "He's…uh…in the hospital."

"The hospital that _I_ just left, Steven?"

"Uh…yeah. But he was on another floor."

"That makes all the difference." Sarcasm flowed heavily. "_I_ was in intensive care, getting stabbed with hypodermic harpoons, while he was lounging in a pleasant room—"

"Two guards at all times!" Steve protested.

"_I_ wasn't allowed to eat for two days. _He_, on the other hand—"

"His shoulder was dislocated."

"It was?" Danny brightened. "And how did that happen, Steven?"

"I…uh…It seemed like a good thing to do at the time," Steve confessed.

"It was a very good thing," Danny reassured him. "Wasn't it, Kono?"

"Absolutely," Kono instantly agreed. "We completely wiped out Hanolo's people, and cleaned up some dirty fringe in the D.A.'s office. I hear the governor's going to put an official commendation in for us." She grinned at the three. "This may not be important for you, but I'm just a rookie. I can use all the commendations I can get. Can we do this again?"

Even though Chin had dumped the sling, there was still a bandage covering the bullet hole in his arm. Steve's arm bore a similar white dressing over a slice from a knife. Danny could now see through black eyes where the swelling was gone down, and he used those eyes to stare at his fellow cop. In fact, all three of them stared at her with expressions of disbelief.

It was Steve McGarrett who broke the silence. He leaned over to stage-whisper to his partner.

"And you think _I'm_ an adrenaline junkie?"

Kono leaned back in her chair, putting her feet up in a position of utter ease. "Just taking lessons from my boss, boss."

The End.


End file.
